The biotechnology market is moving forward: a life form has been created that is unlike any existing on Earth.

Text: Alexey Gostev

Ten years ago, the whole world listened to the bleating of the cloned sheep Dolly, trying to hear in these sounds the answer to the eternal mystery of life. However, Dolly, no matter what they say about her, is just a sheep. Recently, American scientist Jack Shostak made a step that may eclipse all the most publicized discoveries in the field of biotechnology. He created a piece of life from scratch - from dead matter. It turned out that life can be assembled from death like a construction set. In the future, Shostak hopes, the creation of microscopic “living machines” capable of storing information, healing people or inventing new materials will become the same branch of the economy as the production of transistors.

“I am lonely, unhappy and ugly. My companion must belong to the same species, and you must create her for me,” demands the man-made monster from its creator Frankenstein in Mary Shelley’s novel of the same name. The monster’s “life problem” is that, in an effort to become like God, the scientist created a creature unlike any other creature living on Earth. It is not a beast, not a person, not a plant, not an animal, not alive, not dead. Frankenstein's monster ultimately takes terrible revenge on his creator - for the gift of a life that is not pleasing to either God or people.

Like Shelley's hero, Dr. Szostak created a primitive cell from inanimate matter, fats and amino acids - perhaps similar to the distant ancestor of all living things on Earth. An artificial creature can already live, feed and reproduce independently, reproducing itself. However, it is not a plant, not an animal, or even a bacterium. Can we call him alive? No, because it is completely unrelated to earthly living beings. Yes, since this “something” eats and reproduces, it even has an apparatus of heredity. If this is life, then it will be something completely different, the starting point of an alternative evolution that could occur on other planets. While it is only a small cell, it is already under the influence of the laws of natural selection, which finds among the cells those most adapted to environmental conditions. True, now this environment is limited by the size of a laboratory flask. Perhaps, over time, biotechnology will have a way to construct "living machines" from scratch. One can only hope that their biography will be different from that of the monster created by Frankenstein.

New Frankenstein