Scientists creates life in deadly virus
By Roger Highfield Science Editor
(Filed: 12/07/2002)
 

Scientists have taken a giant step towards creating artificial life by building a synthetic polio virus from mail-order DNA.

It multiplied and worked like the real thing. Mice injected with it became paralysed within a week.

Viruses lie on the borderline of life, being complex chemicals that need a living host to replicate and spread.

But Prof Eckard Wimmer, who headed the research in America, told The Telegraph that he had "no doubt" it would one day be possible to "awaken" inanimate chemicals to make the simplest truly living thing, a bacterium. He said: "Our work is worrisome, but it is a message necessary to wake up the public."

The creation of the virus, described in the journal Science, took two painstaking years by Prof Wimmer, Dr Jeronimo Cello and Prof Aniko Paul at the State University of New York.

The genetic molecule at the core of polio is RNA rather than DNA. Because this is unstable, the scientists tweaked the RNA chemical sequence instructions to convert them to DNA. Then they ordered the components - carefully arranged chemical units - from one of the many companies that deal in piecemeal DNA. It took about a year to layer the DNA fragments together to form the first third of the virus. Once the basic "shape" of the virus was established, a DNA synthesis company was hired to assemble the rest.

The researchers then immersed the DNA-version virus in enzymes to convert it back to RNA.

The work raises a host of ethical and practical issues, with Prof Wimmer likely to be compared in some quarters to Dr Frankenstein.

He tried to calm fears about terrorism. Even if terrorists managed to create the virus, the World Health Organisation's vaccination programme had ensured that the world was now well protected against polio, he said.

However, the study also shows that it would be pointless to destroy the remaining stocks of deadly smallpox virus, because a living virus could be reconstructed from the genetic code of smallpox held in computers across the planet.

Asked if his work would allow new diseases to be made, Prof Wimmer said: "At present it is impossible to design a totally new, dangerous infectious agent." But existing agents could be modified, he added.

	23 June 2002: Bison genes offer the key to foot and mouth cure
	5 May 2002: Frankenstein fish will glow in the bowl
	15 March 2002: Vaccine 'sparked polio outbreak'
	3 January 2002: Cloned pigs could help beat transplant organs shortage
	2 August 2001[Connected]: Could androids ever dream of electric sheep?

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