The internet can be a wonderful thing and it can also be very educational, if it is used the right way. There I was, looking for new material to write about when I came across something that was completely unexpected. It was a lecture by a genetic scientist named Craig Venter. I found myself riveted to my monitor, for what must have been about forty five minutes to an hour. Believe me, I felt that every second of my time was well spent, because I was learning about things that I really hadn't given much thought to. When ever I heard about genetics, or about the Human Genome Project, I would sort of lump them all together. My idea of genetics was working on a way to understand the human body. While that part of genetics is true, there is so much more to that science. One of the things that I found out about, was that scientists are now designing chromosomes and genes using computers and that they have about two million combinations of pairs to choose from that are stored in databases. These can be inserted into tiny organisms, such as a virus and they change the characteristics of the virus completely, if that is what you have designed.

Dr. Venter was quick to explain that he and his fellow scientists were not creating life, at least not yet. What they were doing was changing evolution. When I first heard that, a cold shiver ran down my spine. The idea of people out there that were changing evolution seemed more scary than anything I had heard in a long time. Memories of what happened to our food crops quickly came to mind. There was almost a revolt in Europe when we tried to sell them seeds that had been altered. Not only that, but the plants that were grown quickly spread their seed, altering plants that were nearby and some that were not so nearby, because the seeds were carried by the wind. We still don't really know what eating these crops is doing to us and the animals that are dependant on them. Sure we are told that they are beneficial, but that is the same thing we are told about all the drugs that we are sold and look at how many of them have turned out to be harmful. Anyway the good doctor explained that what they were attempting to do was improve what some organisms can do. For example they were working on a way to get certain organisms to produce a gasoline like substance that could be used for fuel. The beauty of this, is that it would consume carbon to do this. Lord knows we have plenty of that floating around.

When he was asked about this particular project, he stated that he had talked about it to many representatives in the business world, but they were less than enthusiastic because they felt that the special interests will prevent this from ever happening. Isn't it a shame, greed rules everything that we do. I have to wonder how many good ideas have been thrown on the scrap heap of history, because of the all mighty dollar? I also wonder how many good people have been killed over this stuff? Dr. Venter didn't seem to be worried about that, but he did express extreme disappointment over what he had been told. We certainly can't blame him for that. Just when you think that you have something that is really going to help mankind, you find out that you won't be allowed to ever get it into production. The doctor went on to explain how they had figured out how to piece together large chains of material to create these chromosomes.

The thing that we have to realize, is that a chromosome is like computer software. What it does is carry instructions that will be incorporated into a host. This host will carry them out, much as a computer carries out a computer program. Right now they are at the point where their study is empirical. They try many different combinations of pairs in the same type of organism and they observe what happens. The organism absorbs the chromosomes and then does what it is told. The result could be an organism that is well equipped to eat oil globules from an oil spill for instance. One of the things that Dr. Venter spoke about was using this technique to create vaccines. He seems to think that we could cure almost any disease with them and even use them to fight off a biological attack. Since he says that this is true, I certainly wouldn't argue this point with him. He is very excited about his work and displayed a chart that showed how some organisms will be put on a predetermined path in their evolution. He explained this as speeding up the natural evolution process.

As the lecture finished, there was a question and answer period. First the host of the show came out and asked questions then the audience was allowed two questions. I had hoped that they would have been allowed more, since the people that were there looked very intelligent and I felt that they would not be throwing the softballs that the host was. The host asked Dr. Venter if his work was more or less trial and error and explained that what he meant was did the doctor use his two million pair database to just throw in a lot of pairs into organisms and see what happened. This was obvious and didn't need to be asked, because the doctor had more or less admitted that this is what they were doing. The rest of the questions were sort of convoluted and were so inconsequential that I can't even remember what else the host of the show asked. All the while this was going on, I had this burning question that I would have loved to been able to ask. Then they opened the floor to the audience and the two questions were asked.

The first question that was asked was, what type of security there was and wasn't the doctor afraid that this might be used in weapons production? This was a very good question, as the military always considers the weapons potential of everything. The doctor answered by saying that he didn't think so, because it would be much easier to just use some of the bio weapons that are in refrigerators all over the world, such as.... (I don't remember what he mentioned), but he was talking about all those stocks of things like the plague and such. He said that there was not much that could be used as a weapon here, but also stated that anything could be used that way, but with this, it would be very complicated to produce. The second question was just a technical one about the process. The burning question that I would have liked to ask was, how do you stop this stuff from getting out of the lab and contaminating other organisms? The doctor did say that there was a kill gene in each organism that could be activated to protect us, but what would happen if the organism spread some of it's dna without sharing that particular gene? I don't know if that is possible, but I would have liked to find out.

I sort of got the idea that someday, artificial life is on the agenda. It might just be a simple organism at first, but like all things, technology will progress and who knows what we will be able to create? The question is will we be able to create that spark of life that takes the lifeless pile of protoplasm into the world of the living? I am sure that many religious people find this thought abhorrent, but some of the truly religious might say that if God didn't want this to happen, it wouldn't. Will we create new species, will man ultimately take over the role of nature? I guess our grandchildren or even our great grandchildren might find out the answerer to this question someday.

Wikipedia describes Dr. Craig Venter this way, "Venter founded The Institute for Genomic Research and was instrumental in mapping the human genome. .He was listed on Time Magazine's 2007 and 2008 Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world."

Dr. Venter received his Ph.D. in physiology and pharmacology and has a bachelor's degree in biochemistry.