A Programming Langauge for Genetic Engineering of Living Cells | Hacker News Reader

A Programming Langauge for Genetic Engineering of Living Cells

research.microsoft.com

37 pointssilkodyssey16 comments

I demoed an early version of this about a year ago. It had an intuitive UI that any biologist without programming experience could understand even back then.

The two main time-drains for synthetic biologists are 1) Lab work creating (which will be phased out when cheap synthesis gets going in 1-3years) and 2) designing the sequence (which this program helps automate). So the rate of progress in the field is definitely going to accelerate...

A programming language for creating living things? Developed by Microsoft? shudders

The objects can be programmed to turn blue when they die. They call it the Blue Death of Screen.

Synthetic biology aims at producing novel biological systems to carry out some desired and well-defined functions. An ultimate dream is to design these systems at a high level of abstraction using engineering-based tools and programming languages, press a button, and have the design translated to DNA sequences that can be synthesised and put to work in living cells.

Why do I have a bad feeling about this? I can't help to wonder: "Will the world necessarily be a better place when this will be possible?"

I don't see this as Pandora's box, in part because we've already got that; I think you have a bad feeling about this because you're insufficiently worried about things that are actually really scary: cancer, heart disease, HIV, malaria, and so on.

I'm actually more worried by the fate of the planet while we let the world population explode and keep suppressing possible causes of human death. We should first get concerned about how these trillions of people will live in a dying world.

I sincerely hope these technologies will be used in the purpose of preventing the planet's doom, although I'm pretty sure they will only serve for more human selfishness, as you seem to suggest it.

I don't know that the super-population-explosion that people keep fearing will really happen. For that to happen, a LOT more food will have to be created, which implies a more prosperous world as a whole. But more highly developed nations tend to have negative growth rates.

Reducto ad absurdem (maybe), but this implies that the solution to overpopulation is to bring the whole world's standard of living up. At which point we slowly allow ourselves to die off.

I agree that accelerating technological progress poses risks (and posted a related comment about AI http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1407120 ) but don't want to ask people to forgo treatment for the sake of population control which can be otherwise managed. To make it (cheaply) personal, and to prove that you're right about my selfishness, I want my wife's cancer cured while the planet is being saved, not afterwards.

Edit: The cancer is in remission, but curing it is something else

How do you press Ctrl-Alt-Del on a cellular level? First function for Microsoft to implement.

I am more interested in how to save memory to disk and restart...

Down for everyone or just me?

Just you.

Not sure I want to meet the human genetic incarnation of Windows Vista ;-)

jpatte, there is absolutely no need to worry about over-population. If we abolish all diseases and discover a method that allows biological immortality, such that the world ends up with a lot more people then it has now, then we will always have war, which in the past has allowed for a wonderful restoration of lower population densities. Just think how quickly a bad situation could be improved through the use of just a few nuclear weapons.

On the creation of the first synthetic cell: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHIocNOHd7A

The headline made me think of this 2002 Cory Doctorow story:

http://www.salon.com/technology/feature/2002/08/28/0wnz0red/...

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