Is Jurassic Park possible?

I was having a discussion with JayCee on the creation of synthetic genome of Mycoplasma genitalium. I am not sure which of the two names in the preceding sentence intrigues you more. Mycoplasma genitalium, in spite of being a bacterium, has a link. But JayCee doesn’t have one. So let’s talk about JayCee before moving on to Mycoplasma genitalium. JayCee is a westernized acronym for Jayachandran Chandrabose. Jayachandran Chandrabose is one of the vitals working in my team. We often discuss less of work and more of science. If your ‘Thamizhian’ sentiments are offended by the ruthless westernization of his name, please be cognizant of the fact that he pretty much understands ‘thiruvasagam’. He admires ‘Sujatha’ once in a day for bringing science and science fiction to Thamizh. JayCee is more Thamizhian than most Thamizhians.

Let’s move on to mycoplasma now. The reality of a bacterial synthetic genome excites us because it hints at the possibility of artificial human genome. But, does the creation of artificial genome, be it a bacterial or a human, tantamount to the creation of artificial life itself? Should we really be excited about this? No, not really. I'll explain why. Creation of life requires two equally important components. 1. Instructions to create an organism. 2. A mechanism to decipher these instructions and do the actual creation of organism. When we create an artificial genome, all we have is a set of instructions to create life. We do not have the genome reader to decipher these instructions and create the actual organism. In human beings the genome reader is the ovary. And a human ovary can decipher only human genome. A human ovary reading a chimpanzee’s genome is as good as a java compiler attempting to compile a COBOL program. It won’t take you anywhere. Similarly, having a genome without its genome reader is like having a software program without a computer to execute. That makes ‘Jurassic Park’ a near impossibility. Even if you have the complete genome of Tyrannosaurus Rex, you can’t create a T.Rex without having a genome reader for T.Rex. Genome reader for T.Rex would be the ovary of a T.Rex, which necessarily requires a living T.Rex. It leads us to a chicken-or-egg riddle and I do not know of any philosophy other than darwinism which has a solution for this riddle. Should creation of artificial human genome excite us anymore? Well, to the extent that it is a major mile stone in the creation of artificial life; But not as much as the creation of artificial life itself. There are ideas which are more exciting than the creation of artificial genome; Ideas like artificial intelligence (AI), Extra terrestrial intelligence, artificial life creation etc. And my next posting will be on one of these ideas.