Life at the Speed of Light: From the Double Helix to the Dawn of Digital Life

by J. Craig Venter

Overview

“Venter instills awe for biology as it is, and as it might become in our hands.” —Publishers Weekly

On May 20, 2010, headlines around the world announced one of the most extraordinary accomplishments in modern science: the creation of the world’s first synthetic lifeform. In Life at the Speed of Light, scientist J. Craig Venter, best known for sequencing the human genome, shares the dramatic account of how he led a team of researchers in this pioneering effort in synthetic genomics—and how that work will have a profound impact on our existence in the years to come. This is a fascinating and authoritative study that provides readers an opportunity to ponder afresh the age-old question “What is life?” at the dawn of a new era of biological engineering.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780143125907
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	09/30/2014
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.80(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

J. Craig Venter is the founder, chairman, and CEO of the J. Craig Venter Institute, a nonprofit research organization dedicated to genomic research. He is also the founder and CEO of Synthetic Genomics, Inc. He lives in La Jolla, California.

Table of Contents

1 Dublin, 1943-2012 1

2 Chemical Synthesis as Proof 8

3 Dawn of the Digital Age of Biology 25

4 Digitizing Life 47

5 Synthetic Phi X 174 63

6 First Synthetic Genome 83

7 Converting One Species into Another 96

8 Synthesis of the M. mycoides Genome 111

9 Inside a Synthetic Cell 127

10 Life by Design 139

11 Biological Teleportation 160

12 Life at the Speed of Light 179

Acknowledgments 189

Notes 191

Index 213

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"When scientists finally succeed in transmitting to another galaxy the digital instructions for building a living organism, they will rely on science that Venter has pioneered.... Readers will thank Venter for an insider’s perspective on epoch-making science."
~Booklist

“Craig Venter is a singular individual... at once inheritor of molecular biology’s prior triumphs and the wellspring of its future…He compellingly depicts his diverse research as a concerted effort to shuttle biology between the material and the digital worlds…a gripping tale and welcome antidote to dry materials and methods sections that make such sagas feel disembodied and inevitable.”
~Science

"[A] remarkable book."
~Scientific American

"A fascinating glimpse at a scientific frontier—not always easily understandable but well worth the effort."
~Kirkus Reviews

"A great read."
~Ricki Lewis, PhD, PLOS.org

“One of the world's leading scientists delivers a history of molecular biology and its many ramifications depicted as it has been and will continue to be, a creator of the golden age of modern biology. His style is that of a dispatch from the front, urgent and engaged, as only a participant could write it, and the best of its genre since James D. Watson's The Double Helix.”
~Edward O. Wilson, University Research Professor Emeritus, Harvard University

“Humanity is entering a period of radical transformation and one reason is due to Craig Venter's research in creating new life forms based on computer designed synthetic DNA.  Life at the Speed of Light is his beautifully written, powerful and persuasive story on how DNA information and computers will blend in the coming singularity, that watershed in the evolution of humanity beyond which amazing new possibilities for life, society and everything we care about will emerge.” 
~Ray Kurzweil, author of How to Create a Mind and The Singularity Is Near

Editorial Reviews

"When scientists finally succeed in transmitting to another galaxy the digital instructions for building a living organism, they will rely on science that Venter has pioneered.... Readers will thank Venter for an insider’s perspective on epoch-making science."
~Booklist

“Craig Venter is a singular individual... at once inheritor of molecular biology’s prior triumphs and the wellspring of its future…He compellingly depicts his diverse research as a concerted effort to shuttle biology between the material and the digital worlds…a gripping tale and welcome antidote to dry materials and methods sections that make such sagas feel disembodied and inevitable.”
~Science

"[A] remarkable book."
~Scientific American

"A fascinating glimpse at a scientific frontier—not always easily understandable but well worth the effort."
~Kirkus Reviews

"A great read."
~Ricki Lewis, PhD, PLOS.org

“One of the world's leading scientists delivers a history of molecular biology and its many ramifications depicted as it has been and will continue to be, a creator of the golden age of modern biology. His style is that of a dispatch from the front, urgent and engaged, as only a participant could write it, and the best of its genre since James D. Watson's The Double Helix.”
~Edward O. Wilson, University Research Professor Emeritus, Harvard University

“Humanity is entering a period of radical transformation and one reason is due to Craig Venter's research in creating new life forms based on computer designed synthetic DNA.  Life at the Speed of Light is his beautifully written, powerful and persuasive story on how DNA information and computers will blend in the coming singularity, that watershed in the evolution of humanity beyond which amazing new possibilities for life, society and everything we care about will emerge.” 
~Ray Kurzweil, author of How to Create a Mind and The Singularity Is Near

From the Publisher

08/12/2013
Venter (A Life Decoded), a field giant of genetics, makes a persuasive case that synthetic biology will help us understand, appreciate, and improve our own biology. The impatient genius who arrogantly raced the U.S. government to sequence the human genome, Venter scores many “firsts” in this emerging field, including the creation—nearly from scratch—of the first synthetic bacterium. It was not a pure “first,” as he used cytoplasm from an existing cell to boot up his synthetic genome—which only deviated slightly from the genome of an existing bacterium. But it’s a major coup; Venter’s synthetic genome successfully instructed the cell to create living proteins. We can now change the software of life, which then changes its own hardware, as it were. Venter shares spellbinding stories from the frontiers of genomics—researchers creating living toolboxes out of mechanisms co-opted from varied life forms. For the wary, he notes nature itself mixes and matches species-specific mechanisms: our own mitochondria were once bacteria engulfed by, and incorporated into, our cells. Gene engineering opens new portals of life-designing potential, he argues, and he champions ethics reviews of such work. Venter instills awe for biology as it is, and as it might become in our hands. Agent: John Brockman, Brockman Inc. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

Famed for sequencing the human genome, Venter has most recently led a group of scientists in the creation of "synthetic life." Soon, we could be writing genetic code for new species, not to create phantasmagorical creatures but to generate energy, cleanse the environment, and more. A primer on the biological engineering that asks that bigger question: What is life?

Library Journal

★ 2013-09-01
Best known for sequencing the human genome, Venter (A Life Decoded: My Genome: My Life, 2007, etc.) now looks ahead to the possibilities for synthesizing life. The author compares the nine months needed to achieve this in 1999--using his "whole genome shotgun method"--to the new technologies available today that can do the job in one day. Venter reprises the sequence of discoveries--from the role of DNA and the structure of the chromosome to modern techniques of "genetic engineering," now called "synthetic biology"--and he situates the current work of his own research teams at the nonprofit J. Craig Venter Institute in the broader context of similar ongoing research--e.g., at MIT, "a sophisticated genetic circuit has been assembled" to detect indicators of cancer and release "a tumor-killing factor." Venter then explains how his initial success led him to two new projects: a "new method of environmental shotgun sequencing" that samples ocean waters and has resulted in the discovery of more than 80 million previously unknown genes and an estimated "billion trillion organisms for every human on the planet"; and the creation of a synthetic genome by transferring a chromosome from one species of bacteria to another, in effect creating a new species synthetically. The author hopes to be able to determine the minimum number of genes needed to maintain a cell's life and is also exploring the hypothesis that the evolution of life has not only occurred gradually due to random genetic mutations. He believes that the addition of chromosomes also occurred, providing a mechanism for dramatic leaps. He looks to a future in which robots will be able to sequence alien life on another planet and transmit the information back to Earth. A fascinating glimpse at a scientific frontier--not always easily understandable but well worth the effort.

Kirkus Reviews