ABSTRACT
In May 2010, scientists at the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) reported the creation of the first self-replicating synthetic bacterial cell. This achievement was touted as the latest step toward creating life from scratch and “a defining moment in the history of biology” (Pennisi, 2010). The genome synthesized was that of Mycoplasma mycoides, a bacterium that causes respiratory infections in cows and goats. Mycoplasma are among the simplest of bacteria. The mycoplasma genome is just over a million base pairs of DNA (versus 3 billion in humans). What the JCVI researchers (Gibson et al., 2010) actually accomplished
was the assembly of pieces of chemically synthesized DNA that collectively comprise the genome of Mycoplasma mycoides.
