This week’s Question: As part of a five-year, $1.58 million research project named AudACiOus, a group of University of Nottingham scientists will attempt to program the genetic components of a cell to perform any desired function, without requiring extensive modification to the cell. If successful, the team would develop a cell’s equivalent of a computer operating system, which could be re-programmed with different “applications” and serve as an easier method for creating new life forms. Researchers say the project could lead to the creation of completely new cellular life forms that could do anything from cleaning up pollutants in the environment to detecting and treating viruses before they enter the human body. Although there have been successes in the bioengineering field, the manipulation of cell parts to run a reprogrammable “cellular operating system” remains a laborious and expensive endeavor. Additionally, it is difficult to predict the behavior of cells in a laboratory environment.
What do you think? Will we be able to design an “operating system” for a living biological cell?
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If there is a working example or analog in natural biology, then yes we will be able to build it ourselves eventually.
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Maybe I should have answered yes since it technically appears possible in the not-too-distant future (if enough resources can be made available). But I seriously doubt that we will be ready for the miriad surprise results that are likely to arise.
We’d very probably have a tiger by the tail that we could not control.
I hope that Microsoft engineers will not be involved with that “operating system”.
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