Artificial Organism

A research team at the State University of New York at Stony Brook was reported to have succeeded in artificially composing the polio virus causing paralysis in infants. This is the first case where an organism is artificially created.

But some worry that the success of this research might be abused for creating a deadly virus for terrorist purposes. The results were reported in the latest issue of the Science (July 12th copy), a US scientific magazine.

The polio virus is in the form of RNA, and consists of 4 kinds of bases (A, C, G and U) and 7741 matrices.

Biomedical team led by Ecart Wimmer, Ph.D, composed the virus first by creating basic chain pieces using the matrices, and then by connecting these pieces. When completed, the team infected mice with the forged virus. The mice got paralyzed, the same symptom shown when infected by the natural virus.

In 1999, another US research team created an influenza virus using not the composed RNA, but the real one.

Doctor Wimmer said, In order to prove the polio virus can be made in the lab, I started this research. When I began to work on this, after a long heated debate, people did not take this seriously. But now it is proved that an organism can be manufacture.

ksshim@donga.com