Artificial Bases Added to DNA

holy_calamity writes "Researchers have successfully added two 'unnatural' DNA letters to the code of life. They created two artificial base pairs that are treated as normal by an enzyme that replicates and fixes DNA inside cells. This raises the prospect of engineering life forms with genetic code not possible within nature, allowing new kinds of genetic engineering."

I, for one...

[Kagura (843695)]

All your artificial base are belong to these researchers.

Let me guess

[should_be_linear (779431)]

Researchers from KFC (tm) ?

Re:Let me guess

[Jumphard (1079023)]

Kentucky Fried Cytosine?

On the topic of "whatcouldpossiblygowrong"

[TheMeuge (645043)]

Why is it that every single article that references any scientific development in the fields of genetics or molecular biology gets the "whatcouldpossiblygowrong" tag on Slashdot? What does this say about our society, since Slashdot members tend to represent the more educated and successful members to begin with? Have we really become such fat lazy luddites that we will reject anything we do not understand, on the basis of an infinitesmally-small risk to our (relatively) decadent and luxurious life?

Do we really only perceive biologists as madmen who want to do evil experients for the heck of it? I've seen this trend spiral out of control, and frankly, I am ASHAMED.

Re:

[iONiUM (530420)]

It's.. It's also possible that maybe it's just a joke in reference to all the related Sci-Fi movies that feature similar sets of scientific progress that go horribly wrong for the sake of ticket sales.

The real question is when did the slashdot audience turn to such un-comical jackasses who feel the need to take everything so seriously? I get it, you're well off, you like science, you like to stay on slashdot because in your opinion it represents the more "successful" members of society. But then, maybe yo

The Audience is a Harsh Mistress

[Valdrax (32670)]

The real question is when did the slashdot audience turn to such un-comical jackasses who feel the need to take everything so seriously? I get it, you're well off, you like science, you like to stay on slashdot because in your opinion it represents the more "successful" members of society. But then, maybe you're just an arrogant prick, and maybe we're just having fun.

I think the real problem here, as Mannie taught Mike, is the difference between "Funny," "Not Funny," and "Funny Once." Like much geek humor, it seems that all the humor in the use of the tag on this article come from mindless repetition, and the joke has officially been beaten into the ground.

Plus, let's face it -- there are articles where the tag is wonderfully appropriate as ironic snark, but this one isn't it. I mean, it's great for articles like this one about mass production of micro fission reactors [slashdot.org] or this one about the proposed future of military robots. [slashdot.org] Sometimes, it's funny when the very proposition of something going wrong is itself funny like with an article on a robot controlled by a monkey's brain. [slashdot.org]

However, dangers and recklessness involved in this project are next to nil. There's no irony and clever cynicism here. There's just the mindless misapplication of an overdone meme in a manner that makes Slashdot look like a bunch of technology fearing idiots. So yeah. While I don't think it's worth getting so worked up about, it is a stupidly applied tag and a failed attempt at humor.

Re:The Audience is a Harsh Mistress

[Roger W Moore (538166)]

However, dangers and recklessness involved in this project are next to nil.

So there is absolutely zero danger of such artifical DNA escaping the lab and getting into the environment cause goodness knows what damage? I can accept that this danger will be minimal but you would have to do some convincing to suggest that it is zero. For a start the new base pair were generated by trying many different random combinations until they found one that replicated. Clearly this suggests that they do not know exactly what this random combination will do when added to a cell, particularly since this is there next research project!

The usual best defence against "what could possibly go wrong" is to say that this already happens in nature so it can't be dangerous. This is the main argument we use against the nay-sayers of the LHC creating a black hole which will swallow the Earth. Cosmic rays striking the upper atmosphere are far more energetic and so if that were a danger we would not be here to discuss it! However the whole point of this experiment is to create something which nature has not done before (to our knowledge).

So the only argument I can see which is left is that the safe guards in effect to prevent this getting into the environment are so good that the risk is minimal and/or the chance that this new DNA pair creating a dangerous organism are zero. Since nobody knows what this pair will do yet I can't see how you can be certain of the latter (although I accept the risk may be incredibly small) and no containment procedure is fool proof since it involves humans (e.g. foot and mouth virus escape last year from a UK lab).

So the question we have to ask is whether the value of the research is worth the risk? As a scientist, though not a biologist, I would be inclined to say yes since it seems that this will help you guys understand some of the fundamentals of DNA plus it sounds really cool. Of course I'm a physicist so there may well be some very valid reason I know nothing about as to why there is no danger at all. So the best way to educate me is to explain why there is zero risk. Telling me that I'm stupid for even questioning that something could possibly go wrong, without telling me why I'm stupid, does not inspire confidence!

Re:On the topic of "whatcouldpossiblygowrong"

[gnick (1211984)]

Do we really only perceive biologists as madmen who want to do evil experients [sic] for the heck of it?

No. But, even though I think that it's enormously cool what these folks did, the "whatcouldpossiblygowrong" tag seems appropriate here. While reading TFA, I couldn't help but think: "Scientists have created an unnatural but successfully replicating new genetic code? Did we just re-invent cancer?" Followed soon after by: "Cool!"

Re:On the topic of "whatcouldpossiblygowrong"

[Jesus_666 (702802)]

Here it does apply, but it's stuck on pretty much any story remotely involving science...

"Scientists Create Artificial DNA Bases With Unknown Properties" - whatcouldpossiblygowrong
"Ultra-Durable Ceramic Invented" - whatcouldpossiblygowrong
"New Discovery Makes X-Rays Safer" - whatcouldpossiblygowrong
"Groundbreaking New Image Processing Algorithm Makes Next-Gen GPUs Much Faster" - whatcouldpossiblygowrong
"Scientist Discovers That Shakespeare Had Tourette's" - whatcouldpossiblygowrong
"US Science Funding To Increase By 20%" - whatcouldpossiblygowrong
"[FAMOUS SCIENTIST] Dead At 71" - whatcouldpossiblygowrong
"Where Have Computer Linguistics Come Since The Seventies?" - whatcouldpossiblygowrong
"The Ten Greatest Discoveries Of Astrophysics" - whatcouldpossiblygowrong


If the software behind Slashdot automatically translated the tag "whatcouldpossiblygowrong" into "science" I'm pretty sure that the quality and applicability of the tag would not decrease in the slightest.

Re:

[ResidntGeek (772730)]

More and more, I see SF as putting out the message "scientists as a group are stupid, shortsighted, and dangerous, only the lone researcher who disagrees with the group knows what is actually going on, and the pitchfork/torch wielding crowd have the right idea on how to fix things."

Problem is, scientists are people, and that description does describe most people. Science is easy to romanticize; heroically smart men and women using the powers of reason and rigorously-designed experimentation and detailed ma

Re:On the topic of "whatcouldpossiblygowrong"

[AJWM (19027)]

More and more, I see SF as putting out the message "scientists as a group are stupid, shortsighted, and dangerous, only the lone researcher who disagrees with the group knows what is actually going on, and the pitchfork/torch wielding crowd have the right idea on how to fix things."

That's pretty much been the case with Hollywood SF since the 1950s. Conspiracy theorists might surmise that it really was due to communist infiltration and that it was all a Soviet plot to undermine US science, but more likely it was (and is) just a combination of the scientifically illiterates' response to something they don't understand (consider Clarke's Third Law plus equating magic to witchcraft), and the fact that the Frankenstein myth has always sold well.

As for written SF, I'm not sure that exists anymore -- I was just looking at a flyer for the upcoming MileHiCon (Denver in October, a few months after the WorldCon), and of the three author guests of honor, none of them write what I'd call science fiction. It's all magic, paranormal and shapeshifters. But that seems to be where the money is; look how "Buffy" and "Angel" did compared to "Firefly".

Now, all you kids get off my lawn!

Re:On the topic of "whatcouldpossiblygowrong"

[riseoftheindividual (1214958)]

In other words, you are buying into to all the anti-science propaganda.

No, in other words he's being a rational open minded person who isn't treating science like a holy can't-do-no-wrong religion. The second you stop questioning the possible ramifications of any given advance, is the second you become an unthinking true believer.

Wouldn't it have been nice if someone way back would have stopped and asked "what could possibly go wrong" when they began exploiting crude oil? Or we could go down the list of medications that have been pulled off the market by the FDA because "what could possibly go wrong" wasn't a question seriously considered early on.

Few people here who tag it are even being serious in the first place, but in humor there is terrible truth and the terrible truth is, we have to be very careful how we proceed with new developments and technologies and it needs to be done with the recognition that they can and often have had unintended consequences. That's not anti-science or irrational, that's being a realist.

Re:

[should_be_linear (779431)]

Why is it that every single article that references any scientific development in the fields of genetics or molecular biology gets the "whatcouldpossiblygowrong" tag on Slashdot?

Because here on /. we know for sure that manipulating firmware is generally bad idea?

Re:

[AKAImBatman (238306)]

Have we really become such fat lazy luddites that we will reject anything we do not understand, on the basis of an infinitesmally-small risk to our (relatively) decadent and luxurious life?

That's a great plan! What could possibly go wrong?

(Ow! Ow! Ow! I'm just kidding! Ow!)

Re:

[cyphercell (843398)]

Do we really only perceive biologists as madmen who want to do evil experiments for the heck of it?

My sister's a microbiologist and I like to say that, Yes, they are all madmen (and women) that want to do evil experiments. (please don't tell her I said that, puhleaze!)

Re:On the topic of "whatcouldpossiblygowrong"

[dmatos (232892)]

What's going to happen if I do tell her? Is she going to create some kind of intelligent ape-bear hybrid with poisonous claws and send it to tear you to pieces?

Cool.

In a word ... Yes

[Bill, Shooter of Bul (629286)]

Biologists aren't evil per say, but they will do almost anything for a grant;) Also keep in mind Risks can only be know with a large sample base. We don't know what the effect any drug is going to be on humans until we test it on statistically large enough groups. The same applies with these type of experiments. The tag is, for me just a reminder that we need to make sure that the proper ethical guidelines are followed and enough experimentation has been done to ensure that we have not invented a new courage for humans or organisms that we care about.

To put it in terms more slashdotters will understand: you don't add new code to a production system with out figuring out ahead of time what could possibly go wrong.

All your base pairs are belong to us

[rve (4436)]

"since Slashdot members tend to represent the more educated and successful members to begin with?"

The above statement deserves a +1 funny

"dont fix what isnt broken"

[plasmacutter (901737)]

There is an old saying not to fix what isn't broken.

There are many subtleties to the natural world which we as humans don't understand. While we uncover more and more every day, we can never know enough to make me comfortable with the idea of significantly altering life on our planet (beyond basic low tech breeding of course).

For instance, long ago we considered exceedingly pure refined nutrients to be the best for us, but it turns out our bodies actually depend on certain "impurities" to properly absorb th

Re:On the topic of "whatcouldpossiblygowrong"

[garcia (6573)]

Or, in other words--lighten up, man. Not everything's serious.

I'm seriously annoyed about the tags. I've been a frequent Slashdot contributer for 10 years and for some fucking reason not only can I not moderate, I cannot add tags. Why the fuck not? I'm good enough to continuously post comments that the other moderators feel are worth of +5 Foo but the "editors" don't feel I'm worthy of bestowing that or tags for others to see?

Personally, I find the majority of tags being used are pointless (like the one referenced above). They need to stop fucking around with the ability to moderate and tag content or do away with it all together -- especially for those that really deserve it.

Re:

[value_added (719364)]

Personally, I find the majority of tags being used are pointless ...

If it helps, you may want to consider doing what I do and regard the tags as you would the graffiti on the walls of a bathroom stall: similarly pointless, irrelevent, badly written, but occasionally informative or even entertaining if you have nothing better to do.

Come to think of it, you may want to extend that approach to the comments, as well. ;-)

Re:On the topic of "whatcouldpossiblygowrong"

[xstonedogx (814876)]

I've been a frequent Slashdot contributer for 10 years and for some fucking reason not only can I not moderate, I cannot add tags.

I'm not sure what you're talking about. [slashdot.org] I didn't look through them all to see if any are more recent, but you tagged something as recently as Monday. Glancing through your tags, I have actually seen some of your tags up there; so it doesn't seem to be a matter of the tags not showing up. Is it that it just doesn't work sometimes? I've had that happen.

Right or wrong, with tags like "who cares", "thievingcunts", and "slownewsdaymeansdumbasfuck", it wouldn't surprise me if your 'tag karma' (or an arbitrary decision on the part of an editor) prevented you from tagging articles or from those tags showing up.

As for moderating, I'm with you. Excellent karma, frequent meta-moderation, and regular posting (in the past anyway) seemed to be a fast track to never having moderator points again for me.

Or you could just search for

[wiredog (43288)]

Stories sectioned Science [slashdot.org].

Re:Or you could just search for

[PitaBred (632671)]

Not quite the same. Science could also include a story about an asteroid hitting earth, or a new galaxy discovered. Which wouldn't be tagged with "whatcouldpossiblygowrong", and wouldn't show up in a search. And you'd more easily find what you're looking for, if you're the kind of person who wants to search for those kinds of new, cutting-edge engineering and science developments.

Re:

[TheThiefMaster (992038)]

You don't have to do it from the firehose, you can do it from the article page too.

Just click the triangle.

Re:MOD PARENT UP!

[by Anonymous Coward]

Your reference to 'the moderators' as if they are some secret organisation with a nefarious agenda is clueless. Moderators are randomly selected readers acting independently who when posting comments or meta-moderating have managed to act objectively and with restraint, or at least have had the sense to post anonymously when trolling. The GPs attitude, even the fact that he is whining about not getting points, probably reflects the reason he doesn't get points.

Re:MOD PARENT UP!

[Spy der Mann (805235)]

Your reference to 'the moderators' as if they are some secret organisation with a nefarious agenda is clueless.

Well done, boy. Our secret is safe again. You will be rewarded by our leadership. B-)

Re:On the topic of "whatcouldpossiblygowrong"

[superwiz (655733)]

let's see... so FUD actually doesn't stand with "got the facts wrong" or "someone i disagree with vehemently". It stands for Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. All three are perfectly incorporated in the phrase "what could possibly go wrong" when it is used as a knee jerk reaction to research.

Rational FUD vs. irrational FUD

[davidwr (791652)]

There is a place for fear, uncertainty, and doubt when it comes to new science and new technology. Let me rephrase that: There is a place for respect for and investigation of the unknown when it comes to new science and new technology.

Take nanotechnology for example. There is no place for sky-is-falling panic over "new asbestosis" and other possibilities, but researchers seriously should look into things like this to put a real, hard, risk assessment on these possibilities. Let's suppose that by 2015 there will be X amount of this or that nanotech in use. What can we predict about the rate of lung disease and how much, if any, of this will be attributable to nanotech? Is this amount acceptable? If not, what if anything can or should be done to reduce the risk?

Likewise, people doing research in genetic engineering, particularly with totally novel life forms, need to ask themselves "what could possibly go wrong," "what is the likelihood of that happening," "how can the risk be reduced or mitigated," and "should we go to the effort to reduce or mitigate the risk." In many cases, the risk is low, the consequences are minor, and/or the cost of mitigation or prevention is high and the logical choice is to accept the new technology and live with the acceptable risks.

In other cases, the risk is high, the consequences are dire, and/or the cost of mitigation or prevention is low and it makes sense to prevent or mitigate the risks.

Re:On the topic of "whatcouldpossiblygowrong"

[ChromaticDragon (1034458)]

Evolution isn't a "let's try every possibility and see what works and what doesn't" sort of thing. It seems rather likely that once things get going down one pathway of evolution that we don't back up to try other possibilities for optimal performance. Indeed, we need to remember that what steers evolution at any given point in time is the current environment (selective pressures) as much as anything. And this itself is constantly changing.

The choice/selection of the four "natural" (five if you count U) bases for RNA/DNA was made so incredibly long ago, it doesn't seem clear that the other possibilities are being or have been tried or selected in any sort of way. So your "um's" don't seem to be appropriate, at all. It's not clear that these base pairs ever "showed up" before at all once life got going using "natural" RNA/DNA.

These aren't new genes were discussing here as much as getting to play with a new library of functions. That is, they're not creating new words as much as expanding the alphabet. And it's not just life so much here that they're pursuing. There are other uses of DNA these days than creating new life. These other applications are discussed in the fine article.

Lastly, the only way to learn is to experiment. Science doesn't prove as much as it disproves. You can theorize all you want, but experiments are necessary to refute/refine these theories (by disproving/falsifying). This is why your request for proof of the unknown is bizarre. Carried to its final conclusion, your "do nothing because we know nothing" attitude would suffocate almost all progress and learning entirely.

New movie

[topherhenk (998915)]

They can now finally make the sequel to Gattaca:

Sagtacy.

What could possibly go wrong, indeed.

[contraba55 (1217056)]

We don't even fully understand the genome, and we're going to complicate it further.

Artificial bases would have what effect?

[KublaiKhan (522918)]

We know what happens with the 'natural' bases--they indicate which amino acids are selected to produce which proteins.

I'm curious as to whether this will result in new kinds of proteins, or whether new amino acids will be required to be built, or what other effects might crop up.

It's interesting, don't get me wrong--but how -practical- is it?

Re:

[Hatta (162192)]

Well not very yet. Before they can get these new bases to actually code for anything, they have to design a tRNA that recognizes the new bases. Then they have to make a novel aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase that attaches a new amino acid to the new tRNA that recognises the new codons. As it is, putting this DNA into any sort of organism would do nothing.

I love optimism

[aadvancedGIR (959466)]

So they manage to build a pair of molecules that can be sucessfully copied when put in a DNA helix, that's something worth publishing in a biochemistery journal, but I don't see how those new molecules could be interpreted by the cell to build new man-designed proteins. Wouldn't it be easier to use man-designed regular DNA sequences that the cell know how to interpret?

A bigger story from ~10 years ago

[digitalderbs (718388)]

You're right. The intention here is not to create new proteins, but to tag DNA and possibly create new DNA nanostructures. At the end of the day, mRNAs that are translated to proteins still will only have access to the same set of tRNAs, and therefore, the same 20 amino-acids.

The article can be found here [acs.org]. [PDF download requires a subscription]

A more interesting discovery (in my opinion) -- from the Scripps Institute -- was made about ~10-15 years ago (IIRC) by Pete Schultz's [scripps.edu] group. They modified tRN

Re:I love optimism

[Jesus_666 (702802)]

If they were reliably ignored, they'de be useful, too - as a marker. It'd work a bit like a watermark: The resulting DNA does the same but can be identified through the marker bases.

engineer tougher DNA

[smellsofbikes (890263)]

This could be really useful in the long-term: if we could substitute replacement codons that work with most of our existing DNA, it's one step to building really tough DNA. Right now, there are a lot of damage mechanisms like adjacent thymines linking [wikipedia.org] resulting from exposure to chemicals or shortwave radiation, and replacement codons engineered to not be suseptible to these could make, say, protracted exposure to radiation outside the Earth's protective atmosphere more viable. Of course, then we'd have to engineer a whole set of enzymes to synthesize those new codons, which is an extremely hard project, but finding things that work as replacement base pairs, now, gives us time to study how they might fail and figure out what the best candidates are.

Genetic engineering WILL get scary

[Tablizer (95088)]

Even if its banned in the US, *other* countries will eventually start experimenting and create a super-race that works 80-hour-weeks without fatigue. Then other countries are going to have to follow to compete, or be left in the dust.

Nature?

[flynt (248848)]

This is only 'not possible within nature' if you make some weird divide when defining nature between humans and everything else in the world. I realize that in the past this was a common thing to do, especially in many religions. But can someone explain what is 'not natural' about humans? Why are the structures we build in cities any 'less natural' than a bird building a nest?

And those letter are...

[zymurgyboy (532799)]

U and S! Resulting in a viral spread of democracy throughout the world!

Re:

[Jesus_666 (702802)]

Then they'll come up with E and the EU-based DNA turns up. EU-based DNA does many things right that USA-based DNA doesn't, but for some reason it needs several thousand bases to code even the simplest amino acids.

Ok whatever

[QuantumG (50515)]

As I don't even understand WTF they've done, I'm gunna go ahead and suggest that this isn't the technology I've been waiting for.

Problem: it is now possible for people to take the DNA sequence for a nasty virus off the web and send it into a DNA synthesis company, pay the $20,000 and get vials and vials of the virus sent to them in under a month. And next year the price will drop to $10,000.. and the year after it will drop to $5,000.. and the year after it will drop to $2500.. and the year after it will drop to $1250, etc.

One Solution: tag each strand of DNA that is synthesized with an "batch number" by incorporating a pattern of artificial bases that will be replicated each time the DNA sequence is replicated. So if someone gets a nasty virus synthesized and puts it in the subway or something then you can read the batch number and trace who bought the DNA.

DNA researchers get to "Second Base" pair

[erroneus (253617)]

...sounds like they're making some kind of social progress.

God

[PolarBearFire (1176791)]

If gene sequencing is like programming and intelligence design is real, is God somewhere trying to decipher this new DNA and muttering obscenities under his breath?

Not possible in nature?

[DigitAl56K (805623)]

This raises the prospect of engineering life forms with genetic code not possible within nature

It seems to me that if these life forms are viable, then this genetic code is possible in nature, it simply may not be known to exist.

Re:

[britneys 9th husband (741556)]

We already have something like this. You know all those uptight restrictions against sex that the religious fundamentalists are always going on about? God put those in the Bible as a sort of DRM to control the copying of His DNA that He owns.

Re:

[$RANDOMLUSER (804576)]

My dream of having two wankers is here!

George Bush and Dick Cheney?

Re:Furries

[Malevolent Tester (1201209)]

I eagerly await proper human-animal hybrids, albeit only for the opportunity to make a joke about the right to bear arms.

Re:

[xanthines-R-yummy (635710)]

DNA is NOT protein! So we have an additional two letters to the genomic alphabet. BFD! The most likely scenario is that DNA would either be non-sensical or just be alternate codings for amino acids. You would need to engineer some "regular" DNA to code for proteins that can handle exotic amino acids (ie proteins to get them inside cells, tag them for use, and proteins that have recognition sites for these things). Then you'll have a protein no one has seen before. Of course, regular genetic engineering alre