An activist group is raising a ruckus about what it says may be the first effort to patent an entirely synthetic free-living organism. It says the patent application, filed by maverick genome sequencer J. Craig Venter's institute on an idea that has likely not yet been achieved, would tie up a new technology and could aid bioterrorists. But others say there's nothing new or surprising about the patenting effort.
The work involves a simple bacterium called Mycoplasma genitalium that Venter's institute in Rockville, Maryland, has been tinkering with for years. An early goal was to determine the minimum number of genes for life, and in 1999, scientists there published a rough tally. Now, they want to synthesize this "minimal genome" from scratch, get it working inside a cell, then add genes that would enable the bug to crank out hydrogen or ethanol to produce cheap energy (Science, 14 February 2003, p. 1006). The J. Craig Venter Institute describes this plan in a patent application filed last October and published on 31 May by the U.S. Patent Office.
The ETC Group, a technology watchdog group based in Ottawa, Canada, is alarmed. They compare Venter's plans to patent a platform for building designer microbes to Microsoft's domination of personal computer software, suggesting that it's "the start of a high-stakes commercial race to synthesize and privatize synthetic life forms." ETC is calling for Venter to withdraw the application and for the U.S. and international patent offices to reject it so that societal implications can be considered.
But other synthetic biologists note that the U.S. Supreme Court long ago established that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) can be patented. The bigger question, says Harvard's George Church, is whether the inventors' claims to have come up with something useful will hold up. There's no obvious reason why you need a completely synthetic Mycoplasma rather than, say, modified E. coli to make hydrogen, he says. As for arguments that the technology could do harm, Frederick Blattner of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, notes that Mycoplasma only grows if it's coddled in a special broth. "It would have absolutely no chance of survival if it escaped" the lab, he says.
ETC's Jim Thomas says his group's broader concern is that, as with previous GMOs, synthetic organisms raise questions that haven't yet been addressed. "It's kind of the GMO debate on steroids," he says. Bioethicist Art Caplan of the University of Pennsylvania, who finds minimal genome work morally acceptable (Science, 10 December, 1999, p. 2087: ) agrees on one point--that some details of minimal-genome research that could aid terrorists probably shouldn't be published in the open literature.
Venter's group still has to demonstrate the idea will work before they can get a patent. (Venter was traveling and not available for comment.)
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