A scientific program aimed at creating yeast with an artificial genome has been successful – writes University of Nottingham colleagues in Cell Columns. Axios Based on his news report, it is index.
The result is considered a scientific achievement, as it was created by researchers who created artificial copies of 16 chromosomes and then combined them into a living organism.
Until now, science has only been able to produce bacteria and viruses using artificial genetics, but animal and plant cells are much more complex, so manufacturing yeast has been an extremely difficult theoretical and technical challenge. The problem is that the intervention is often toxic and fatal to the cell, the science portal reported.
Researchers achieved three main goals with synthetic yeast: increasing genome stability, repurposing some genetic instructions, and building a system that would make it easier to endow cells with different abilities in the future. In this way, I can make organisms produce medicine or even fuel by consuming methane, for example.
However, one potential risk of this technology is that it continues this biochemical process in nature if it is released.
The researchers pointed out that the use of artificial cells still requires legal regulation. The portal writes that Benjamin Blount, the researcher leading the production of artificial yeast, tried to reassure everyone that the organism they created could not transfer its genes and could not survive in natural conditions.
