The new life is born with a jolt: A fresh genome, built from scratch with human hands, is pushed into a host cell using an electric current. One cell quickly becomes a colony of a billion, and a completely unique living organism is alive.
It's not science fiction — or even a recent breakthrough. Scientists created the first synthetic bacterium back in 2010 using this method. But in a new study published Thursday in Science, they've taken this proof of concept a step further. Their latest single-cell creation has what they're calling a "minimal genome." They've created an organism that has just 473 genes, the smallest known genome of any living organism. With fewer, it wouldn't be able to sustain itself. Their hope is that bringing a genome down to its minimum components will help scientists figure out the most basic building blocks of life. As it stands, even this minimal genome has many genes with unknown purposes.
