The first biological teleportator is located in the laboratory of Synthetic Genomics Inc. (SGI), located on the ground floor of a building in San Diego, and looks like a large equipment cart.
In reality, this device is a collection of small machines and laboratory robots - connected together, they form one large device. It is capable of doing something unprecedented, namely transmitting a digital code to print viruses.
In a series of experiments that entered their final phase last year, SGI scientists sent out sets of genetic instructions from elsewhere in the building to automatically replicate DNA from common flu viruses. In the same way, they made a working bacteriophage (a virus that infects bacteria).
Although this is not the first time a virus has been made from parts of DNA, it is the first time a virus has been created in an automatic mode, without manual operations.
The device, dubbed a "digital-to-biological converter", was demonstrated in May. So far, this is only a prototype, but in the future, such tools could transfer biological information from the site of epidemics directly to vaccine manufacturers or "print" personalized drugs on request directly at the patient's location.
“For a decade, we have dreamed of being able to fax life forms,” says Juan Henriquez of Excel Ventus, a venture capital firm that has invested in SGI. He envisions a new industrial revolution based on a "digital-biological converter" of the same magnitude as the revolution once produced by the cotton picker.
Craig Venter, a dissident biologist who founded Synthetic Genomics in 2005 (although he no longer takes part in its activities on a daily basis), suggests the possibility of interplanetary transmission of life forms.
“He discussed it with Elon Musk,” says Dan Gibson, SGI's vice president of DNA technology.
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Influenza viruses
Unlike Craig Venter, who is famous for big statements and ambitious plans, Gibson is known among biologists for his involvement in the Gibson Assembly - a reaction that fuses small pieces of DNA obtained in a laboratory into larger genes.
SGI's BioXP 3200 commercial DNA printer is at the heart of the digital-to-biological converter. When Gibson, in the office, sends a message to the converter, it starts working using pre-loaded chemicals. We would send such a message from anywhere.
In late May, Gibson's team unveiled how they used a printer to create DNA, RNA, proteins and viruses "automatically from digitally transmitted DNA sequences without human intervention."
Work on the digital-to-biological converter began in 2013, when SGI and drug manufacturer Novartis conducted a test to see if data from the influenza epidemic could be used to quickly create seed viruses used in vaccine production.
The verification opportunity came in March of that year, when the Chinese announced an epidemic of the H7N9 influenza virus and made its DNA sequence publicly available. (The H and N in the name of the type of flu refer to hemagglutinin and neuraminidase, proteins on the outer coat of the virus that the human immune system recognizes.) “It was Easter Sunday,” Gibson recalls, “when I received an email reporting the virus panic in China avian influenza H7N9. So we had the opportunity to get the DNA sequence very quickly."
Two days later, without access to samples, with only digital sequences, SGI synthesized the H and N protein genes on a DNA printer. These DNA strands were sent to Novartis, where they created a virus strain containing new genetic information for production vaccines. That was when the idea of a digital-to-biological converter became a reality, Gibson said. “I said, can we put it all together in one box?” He recalls.
Gibson hopes to build a lucrative business with the device. “Imagine,” he says, “that the Center for Infectious Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta deciphers the genetic information for an antibody to a disease like Ebola, which is threatening an epidemic. This code can be sent to converters around the world and the production of the antidote can begin. I believe it will be possible in the near future."
Error problems
As amazing as the ability to program life and distribute it remotely, the usefulness of biological teleportation remains a matter of debate. Building up a small stock of seed virus is important, but it is only one step towards producing a vaccine in tangible quantities for an entire country. The attenuated viruses found in flu shots must be grown in trillions in chicken eggs - a carefully planned process that takes six months.
“The DNA strands produced by the SGI converter are still prone to errors or random mutations. These mutations will be unacceptably high … for the production of vaccines or pharmaceuticals,”writes David Evans, a virologist at the University of Alberta.
And yet, according to Evans, "While there is little novelty in every single step, the steps put together to produce functional DNA are quite impressive … Solve the error problem and you have a device that everyone wants."
Gibson says he is looking for a solution to the error problem and is also trying to shrink the converter to an acceptable size. Now the device takes up the volume of a Fiat 500 car.
Panspermia
SGI has not yet "printed life" - most biologists do not consider viruses to be alive. But the company can approach this. In 2016, SGI announced the creation of a "minimal cell", a bacterium with the smallest genome of all, that could serve as a cassette tape for recording new genetic instructions. Since "the minimal cell is the simplest form of life," Gibson said, it would be logical to try to print it.
Some SGI proponents, including Craig Venter, make it clear that the ultimate stage for printer DNA will be the transfer of life forms between planets. In the proposed scenario, a machine - the creator of DNA chains from fragments - could be sent to Mars in order to obtain the genetic code of any living - or those close to them - forms.
This data could then be transmitted to a converter on Earth that would reconstruct the alien life form, possibly in a high security laboratory. A group of SGI employees briefly worked with NASA scientists in the Mojave Desert in 2013, testing various aspects of the theory. “We loaded the bus with everything we needed, isolated some of the samples and sequenced them,” Gibson said.
Sending information about life into space may be of even greater interest. One theory of the origin of life on Earth, known as panspermia, was that life was brought in by a meteorite or comet. Sending biological converters into space would be a kind of "payback" from humanity, says Juan Enriquez, by further spreading life.
“I want to do something outside of this world - send such a thing to Mars and print fuel, or print part of the atmosphere, or nutrients,” he says.
This raises the question of which form of life or which genetic sequence to send first. Craig Venter secretly used his own DNA for the first human genomic sequence, published in 2003.
When asked if Venter was going to reproduce his genome on another planet, Gibson and Enriquez answered the same: "No comment."
Vadim Tarabarko