By
Muhammad Arif Haikal Bin
Mohamad Hanafi
Bachelor of Science (Marine
Biology)
Universiti Malaysia
Terengganu
John Craig Venter
(JCV) tries to drive us to a new world or a new dimension of biological
science. Some said he is a biologist, biological engineer and geneticist while
other said that he playing god and biology pirate. Before I go through my
opinions and point of view, I would like to explain that all my opinions and
point of view towards him is based on most of the video that I watched in
YouTube which are reliable and convenient source about his talks and
interviews. It is unfair for me to give my opinions and point of view based on
people’s blogs. It seems bias and made me judge him on one side only.
Firstly, it is
subjective to give opinions about what his had done. Made a God work or made a
human’s life better is based on what we seek from what he had done. His work
about synthetic life is one of a magnificent work that his had done. In term of
creating or ‘making’ that life that he made that useful and only booted as what
only being told is quite relevant for me. The mechanism is organism genetic
code can be type, literally type by computer and a specific machine will insert
this made genetic materials chemically to a virus and bacteria so that the
bacteria will read the new genetic material and express the genes. For now the
process still need usage of bacteria to express the made gene. But what if the
future when the study about this mechanism become more exploited and advance?
This technology will made our science fiction to real when we can clone human
or other complex organism without a gamate. For example, if he boot and made an
organism to do a particular work which can produce biofuel from CO2,
why not? We can reduce CO2 concentration in air. We can reduce the
rate of ozone degradation. The term ‘relevant’ that I used here refer on scale
of the organism that he made. For bacteria or other viruses it is not a big
problem as long that organism only work or do it work what is being told. When
it comes for a large scale, for example human and other humans, it may give a
problem. Yes, he mentioned that we may clone human (without gamete) from this
synthetic life theory, but not with already developed adult stage. He state
that we can do this but, we can only start the human cloning from the beginning
of embryo stage or baby stage. For me there are many problems could happen but
2 possible things could happen are enough made we rethink what his work. The cloned
human may become ‘zombie’ if it only booted to do a specific job like glowing
in the dark or if they could emotional, what happen to the original human
descend become chaos and unarranged.
Next, the good thing
for these digitalize genetic code is in human health or medication usage.
Imagine that one country is being covered with an infectious disease. All
international gate of that country is closed. Only certain countries have that
vaccine, medicine or cure for that unfortunate country. We can help that
unfortunate country by giving the vaccine gene via email or internet. We can
email the gene that can express or secrete the vaccine to that country and up
to that infected country to produce according their need. He also mentioned
that if we wanted to start living on Mars one day, this digitalize vaccine will
made a better way to transport cure on Mars form Earth.
His work regarding
harvesting world ocean is subjective. If he harvests that oceanic organism
specifically plankton makes a research. Turn out that research makes a new
biotechnology and he is the only one that gets wealth profit on it, surely he
is a biology pirate. But aside from that, he can discover what is gene that can
make a specific metabolism that can be made or that metabolism’s gene is
unknown. For examples we need a heat resistance and UV shield protection in our
skin, what is the gene that can express that character? What if he can find a
specific gene sequence from oceanic plankton and bacteria that lives in
hydrothermal vent? Surely his voyage is not a waste. His voyage that harvests
the oceanic biological gene is such a great idea when it comes to royalty of
the ocean area, he need to sit and discuss with that particular country.
Yes, it is up to what
people seek from his theory and technology about synthetic life but there are
few questions that pop-up in my mind. If his theory and technology that making
a synthetic life fell into wrong hand, a person that made a weaponry utility,
are these synthetic life would give a big problem and may cause World War 3 or
World War 4? Is there any prevention of this problem? Hopefully this question
will be answer before I get old enough to remember my question.
If had a chance to
ask questions to JCV personally, I would ask that with all his theory and
knowledge also the technology that he have, are we creating people that is
‘immortal’? JCV himself has publish his one genetic sequence and he also can
type or digitalize it back to computer to make the genetic code, in small
scale, he can literally ‘rebirth’ again with the same genetic sequence or made
him a better person after he is rebirth. In large scale, he can make a world of
not diverse at all. It seem like same people is rebirth again and again.
Dominancy will occur only a better human will be on Earth.
With further studies
of this synthetic life, instead using and making this non-gamete organism life and
doing work on Earth, why don’t we make this organism as an experiment about the
survival in Mars if we wanted to lives there one day? We make or clone a same
organism species on Earth that carry same or modified genetic sequence
(regarding the need of studies on Mars) to the Mars and observe the health and
biological condition of that organism. For starting point, maybe primate and
laboratory white mice can be used.
End up my opinions,
it is up to what we seek from his achievement and finding about synthetic life.
My opinions are based on scientific studies about JCV not his personal life.
Again, it is unfair for me to judge and give my opinion about JCV’s personal
life and personality.
Thank You
