The breakthrough Scientists at the J. Craig Venter Institute announced a synthetic cell whose entire genome is chemically assembled and fully directs the organism’s behavior. The feat pushes synthetic biology from blu…

The team, led by Dr Craig Venter, copied a bacterial genome, built it with synthesis machines, and transplanted the synthetic chromosome into a recipient cell. The resulting microbe replicated over a billion times, ea…

How the cell was built The researchers began by sequencing an existing bacterial genome and then chemically constructing an identical copy. This synthetic chromosome, unlike earlier partial constructs, contained no na…

Once the synthetic chromosome entered the host, the cell began to express the genes encoded on the artificial DNA. It grew, divided, and produced offspring that inherited the synthetic genome exclusively. The research…