Geneticist Craig Venter’s team assembled the genome of a simple bacterium from pieces of synthetic DNA and then inserted the DNA into another empty bacterium. The team, which also included biologists Hamilton Smith and Clyde Hutchinson, rebooted the system, and the cell literally came to life. The genome was that of the bacterium Mycoplasma mycoiedis; the empty host cell was that of Mycoplasma capricolum. The rebooted cell lived, grew, and behaved like a normal Mycoplasma mycoiedis cell. Venter’s team then set about identifying a minimal genome for life and found 473 genes essential for life, 149 of which had unknown roles.
