Microcosm_ E. Coli and the New Science of Life - Carl Zimmer [89]
Voigt is an assistant professor with a long list of scientific papers on his résumé. But he is also a child of the biotechnological age. He had not yet been born when scientists first learned how to insert genes in E. coli in the 1970s. That breakthrough was one of the most important in the history of biology. Genetic engineering allowed scientists to decipher some of the genome’s most baffling features. They turned E. coli into an industrial workhorse and created a $75 billion industry. Once scientists had mastered the art of inserting genes into E. coli, they began putting them in other microbes and then in animals and plants. Now goats produce drugs in their milk. Now 250 million acres of farmland are covered in crops carrying genes that make them resistant to pesticides and herbicides.
But as genetic engineering spreads to other species, E. coli has not faded into the background. It remains the species of choice for scientists who want to develop new tools for manipulating life. Voigt’s work, for example, is part of a new kind of genetic engineering called synthetic biology. Instead of simply moving a single gene from one species to another, synthetic biologists seek to create entire circuits of genes. They wire together genes from various species and fine-tune them to carry out new functions. For now synthetic biologists have learned enough only to create eye-catching proofs of principle, like Voigt’s microbial camera. But these lessons could lead to microbes that act as solar-power generators, or that can produce drugs when the conditions are right—call them thinking drugs. Some synthetic biologists are even trying to dismantle E. coli and use its parts to rebuild life from scratch.
This new research tingles with controversy. A debate is raging over the risk sposed by synthetic biology and other advances in biotechnology—the accidental release of dangerous new creatures, for example, or even intentional engineering of biological weapons. Thinking drugs could become thinking plagues. Synthetic biologists have also given a fresh spur to the debate over the morality of biotechnology in general. Today the world faces a huge, confusing surge of scientific research, with mice growing human neurons in their brains and deadly viruses being built from the ground up. In order to resolve these debates, we must think seriously about what it means to be alive and how biotechnology changes that meaning. And E. coli, the germ of our biotechnological age, has much to tell us. The face looks back, less a portrait than a mirror.
NEOLITHIC BIOTECH
Biotechnology was born many times, and each time it was born blind.
Humans began to manipulate other life-forms to make useful things, such as food and clothing, at least 10,000 years ago. In places such as Southeast Asia, Turkey, West Africa, and Mexico, people began to domesticate animals and plants. They probably did so unwittingly at first. Gathering plants, they picked some kinds over others, accidentally spreading the seeds on the ground. The wild ancestors of dogs that lingered near campfires might have fed on scraps and passed on their sociable genes to their pups. These species adapted to life with humans through natural selection. Once humans began to farm and raise livestock, natural selection gave way to artificial selection as they consciously chose the individuals with the traits they wanted to breed. Evolution accelerated as humans assembled a parade of grotesque creations, from flat-faced pugs to boulder-sized pumpkins.
The first Neolithic biotechnologists were manipulating microbes as well. They learned how to make beer and wine or, rather, how to allow yeast to make beer and wine.