Synthetic cell may provide HIV vaccine

May 25, 2010

Synthetic cell may provide HIV vaccine

May 22, 3:17 PM

Toronto Science News Examiner

Tomitheos Linardos

The synthetic cells - a colony of millions of blue bacteria now frozen - are hard to grow out of lab

TORONTO - An AIDS virus is detected in the blood as HIV (the human immunodeficiency virus) and the infection is currently incurable. Doctors are able to suppress the virus by using various combinations of potent antiretroviral drugs. The medication can lower the infection to such low levels that HIV/AIDS becomes undetectable in the blood and the virus has difficulty in replicating itself. As a result, the patients who remain faithful to their treatment regimens can live decades with the virus. The aforementioned guidelines appeared in the 2006 Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), that was released in conjunction with the 16th International AIDS Conference in Toronto, Canada, which had brought more than 26,000 scientists, activists, doctors, journalists and other allied health care professionals in the GTA.

Since 2006, researchers began to observe that some of these HIV/AIDS patients who have been on antiretroviral therapy (ART) for many years, exhibited signs of accelerated aging with increased risk of heart disease, some cancers, liver disease, and dementia.

Because most longtime HIV/AIDS patients are on medical treatment, scientists have been unsure about whether this premature aging process results from the body’s immune response to the virus or if it is a side effect of the treatment. Sourced: AFAR Article 'Controlling HIV in the brain'

In an HIV infection, the virus invades the host's immune cells and converts them into cells that mass-produce more of the virus. The takeover of the immune cells leaves the host defenseless against common bacterial infections that cause pneumonias, diarrhea, cancers and other diseases. CD4-positive cell counts are a crude marker of how well a patient's immune system is doing.

However, new research stipulates a completely new approach. Craig Venter who is known for having engineered a chromosome that was inserted into a bacterium to create a new living entity announced this week, after 15 years of research, that he has once again changed our perspective of life when he led his team of scientists in creating the first synthetic cell that is powered by artificially infused DNA.

This week, the journal Science published Venter's work on Thursday May 20, 2010 where Venter spoke via teleconference. Craig Venter: "..this is the first self-replicating species that we've had on the planet whose parent is a computer.." Sourced: Winnipeg Free Press 'Scientists create first living synthetic cell with computer mix of chemicals'

Human DNA is very complex and contains six billion genetic letters, the synthetic cell merely scratches the surface with just over a million DNA base pairs, or genetic letters, but what is fascinating is that the synthetic cell was created by combining a cocktail of chemicals to create a chromosome that was infused with genetic code writing by a computer program - whereas life can be transformed from one species to another just by switching software. Venter continued to say, at Thursday's teleconference, that the synthetic cell is an early first step in designing artificial life forms that could one day produce new pharmaceuticals and new strains of algae that can capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to make hydrocarbons that can be refined into biological fuels.

Toronto based Geneticist Stephen Scherer was not part of the synthetic cell research team but compared the impact of the discovery similar to when cloning was introduced and in his email said that it was "a landmark in biology", Stephen Scherer is also the senior scientist at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children.

Timothy Caulfield, an expert in health law and policy who wrote 'Revisiting Core Principles: Autonomy, Consent and the Biobanking Challenge' in Jocelyn Downie & Elaine Gibson, (Health Law at the Supreme Court of Canada Toronto: Irwin Law, 2007 169-188) is now working at the University of Alberta, said: 'concerns could be similar to those surrounding genetically modified organisms' and any 'potential threats to the environment and other living entities, including people.' Sourced: Macleans Magazine

With new revolutionary scientific discoveries in progressing human intelligence comes moral obligation with public responsibility and some controversy. Although Venter's creation of artificial / synthetic DNA may solve the problem of developing vaccines for quickly evolving viruses like HIV, many may argue that the synthetic cell is not creating new life but simply artificially re-creating 'existing' life.