Scientists create organism with 'alien' DNA

Life, unlike anything that exists now on Earth, has been created in a lab by using a new type of DNA.

After 15 years of research and effort, scientist Floyd Romesberg and his team have created bacteria out of DNA that they had modified.

All of the species living under the sun have the same four-letters code DNA: G, T, C and A. Researchers added to new letters to this DNA code, X and Y.

The result is the birth of a bacteria with synthetic DNA which could be used, in future research, to create drugs or other products.

‘If you have a language that has a certain number of letters, you want to add letters so you can write more words and tell more stories. What we have now is a living cell that literally stores increased genetic information,’ said Romesberg about the features the extra letters in the DNA bring to the organism he created.

Safety and ethical questions may rise from this laboratory invention but Rosemberg explains that, even though the bacteria has the ability to reproduce, they depend on the modified DNA for survival and would either die or adapt to the normal DNA when moved to another environment.