Ian C. Ellul

Every cloud has a silver lining. Or so they say. However I seriously doubt whether its attributed author ( John Milton, most famous for penning Paradise Lost) in 1634 had an ash cloud in mind. Or for all that matters the effects that such cloud would herald on the mortality & morbidity of people all over the world (and predictions are telling us that the cloud may persist for months to come). I am referring to patients stranded in airports self-administering their last insulin shot or viewing their dwindling warfarin or phenytoin stock and having to buy supplies from their hosting countries (including developing ones). The concerning issue is that  bioequivalence of particular medicinal products bought in an emergency (generally of different brands to the ones normally used) cannot be ascertained. Other effects of the ash cloud include medicinal products which may become out of stock because their transportation chain is being severed, jeopardising the treatment being provided, especially in acute situations. Not to mention the negative impact on medical tourism. A colleague has indeed lost his IVF embryo transfer in the UK.  In my opinion it seems that the more we develop technologies to facilitate our life, the more mother nature seems to highlight our fragility, and dependance on its delicate homeostasis.

Speaking of new technologies just a few days ago Gibson and his colleagues at the J. Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Maryland, synthesized the genome of the bacterium Mycoplasma mycoides, consisting of about 1.1 million base pairs. Having assembled the genome inside a yeast cell, they transplanted it into a cell from a closely related species, Mycoplasma capricolum. After the newly made cell had divided, the cells of the bacterial colony that it formed contained only proteins characteristic of M. mycoides.

The Venter Institute work may thus help to link chemistry to natural history. The new synthetic technology may thus allow the resurrection of ancient bacteria, whose behaviour should inform us about planetary and ecological environments millions of years ago. Following this achievement, it may now be also possible to answer one of the great remaining questions of biology: how did life begin?

However many unparalleled risks may arise. New regulations have to be drafted to prevent the release of hazardous life forms. And scientists are having two main concerns, relating to bioerror and especially bioterrorism. For the latter avoidance, realistic in vitro ecosystems should be standardized to test the ability of new synthetic genomes to persist or exchange genes in the wild.