> He [Craig Venter] says the synthetic "designer bacteria" could have
> positive applications. Scientists could learn how to produce customised
> genes that could help build organisms for eating radioactive waste or
> cleaning up after oil spills, for example.
>
> They could also be programmed to produce a whole new generation of
> powerful drugs.
Hahahahahahahha! Yes, perhaps in a few more centuries...
What's wrong with using current bacterial systems? Seems like it would
be a lot easier to modify and evolve a living bacterium than develop
a new one almost from scratch.
Sound like Craig needs a few more bacterial physiologists and
metabolic modelling folks on his staff to provide reality checks.
Regards,
Tim Ikeda
tikeda@sprintmail.hormel.com (despam address before use)