Christian Research Network reports:
Describing their findings as “humbling,” researchers who set out to create a “minimal genome” have concluded that the basic elements of life are enormously complex and remain full of unsolved mysteries.
In an article titled “Design and synthesis of a minimal bacterial genome,” a team of more than 20 scientists share the results of years of research on cellular genomes. The scientists, in an attempt to better understand the basic requirement for life, took a bacterial genome and stripped it down of all genes they deemed unnecessary.
“We set out to define a minimal cellular genome experimentally by designing and building one, then testing it for viability,” the scientists explain in their paper, which was published last week in the journal “Science.” “Our goal is a cell so simple that we can determine the molecular and biological function of every gene.”
