It goes without saying that human beings possess some extraordinary abilities. There have been several times in the existence of mankind when humans did things that surprised the whole universe. Though humanity cannot completely function in the divine and the mystical realm of God, however, there are certain things we have been gifted with the ability to do and to achieve, meaning that we can in a limited way, behave like the creator. Here are facts that shows that.
Creating Artificial Life
After much study and years long of research, Dr. Craig Venter, a multimillionaire pioneer in genetics, finally came up with a discovery that would change the world of medicine. In the project, him and his team came up with a way of generating an artificial life form out of chemicals. Venter and his team of scientists, sequenced the genetic code of Mycoplasma genitalium (the world’s smallest bacteria) and then use that data they have gathered to artificially reproduce the bacteria's DNA in the laboratory. The result was an artificially synthetic cell capable of replicating. This discovery is very significant because it may pave the way for a lot of scientific breakthrough most especially in waste management, pollution control, biofuel production and vaccination against diseases.
Creating An Alien Organism With Synthetic DNA
DNA is arguably the foundation of all life forms. It holds the genetic code of all living things from the most basic to the most complex. It is one aspect of medicine whose exploration knows no bound. There are several way the DNA can be manipulated and the result will do nothing else but leave us in awe. Scientists has recently made just another breakthrough by creating something we least expected. They created an alien organism that contains the two natural pairs of DNA bases A-T, G-C plus a third, artificial one. They engineered it from an E. coli bacteria. This alien organism can be considered the “first man-made creature” since “it has different DNA to everything else on Earth.
Editing Human Genes
Several technology have shown how possible it is to edit the DNA -the most notable being CRISPR technology (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Palindromic Repeats,) a technology that makes it possible to identify and edit a particular gene. Editing the DNA actually means producing a desired organism, meaning that organism can be formed just the way we want them to be. In the past, genetic editing was only limited to animals and plants alone. But now it is being aimed at humanity too. If this medical technology is allowed to proceed in humanity, it will actually be paving the way for the development of "designer babies".
Creating Artificial Sperm
Infertility is one of the major issues ravaging our society and one of the things that leads to relationship and marriage problems -and it seem that men are often the victim of this circumstance. It will be a step in the right direction if anything can be done to eradicate this problem in our society. However, things are beginning to look up as there are lots of hopes regarding this issue, because medicine is taking another route.
Scientists in China have been able to create artificial sperm in the laboratory. They extracted embryonic stem cells ( a cell that has the potential of becoming any type of cell in the body) from a mouse and then treated them with various chemicals. They were able to produce a primordial germ cells in the process. They then exposed these germ cells to male sex hormone (testosterone). After some time, the germ cells transformed into fully functional sperm cells that the scientist injected into female mice who later on gave birth to healthy babies.
The next step of this research is to test the procedure in primates, probably gorillas and apes and if successful, human beings will come into the picture. This medical breakthrough may one day eradicate infertility in men and make infertile men be able to father their own children.
