'Synthia' Brings New Life to Science of Genetic Engineering

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: To some scientists, the work of Craig Venter's research offers hopeful possibilities. For example, Mister Venter is working to design cells that can make it easier to capture carbon dioxide. His team is also attempting to produce new food oils and make synthetic parts of every known influenza virus. The process may help build new vaccines much faster than is done now.

However, some people see other, far less pleasant possibilities for the new technology. The environmental activist group Friends of the Earth says it is dangerous. The group says it could be hard to stop experimental organisms from entering the natural environment.

It says the synthetic cells might take control of living things in nature. Friends of the Earth has called for suspending further research until rules are made for the technology.

BOB DOUGHTY: University of Pennsylvania professor Arthur Caplan is bioethicist -- an expert in ethical and moral issues of biological medicine and technology. He says the new cell is one of the most important scientific gains ever made. Professor Caplan also believes that concerns about the possible escape of manufactured cells into the atmosphere are real.

Mark Bedau of Reed College in Oregon says Mister Venter's work marks an important step over traditional genetic engineering of individual genes. But Professor Bedau says that nobody can be sure about the results of making new forms of life. He says science must expect results that are unexpected and unmeant.

President Obama has ordered a report about the possible risks of the technology.

Also, some people may find that manufactured cells threaten their belief that only God should create life. But Nobel Prize-winning scientist David Baltimore says the team created only a representation of real life. Mister Baltimore is a former president of the California Institute of Technology.

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: Other scientists praise the Venter team's amazingly big piece of DNA. Still others question whether the cell and those to follow can really help improve health and make biofuels.

Divided opinions of his work are not new to Craig Venter. Over the years, he has sometimes earned enemies by expressing opinions that offend other scientists.

Mister Venter will be sixty-four years old in October. At that age, many people are retired. But he is hard at work. He and his team currently are trying to make algae that can change carbon dioxide back into fossil fuel.