S167: The Synthetic Cell, and Onward

Recently, the J. Craig Venter Institute announced the creation of a bacterial cell that is driven by a wholly synthetic genome.  This involved the development of several techniques of synthetic DNA construction spanning several orders of magnitude of size (from oligo-nucleotides to megabases of double stranded DNA).  Following the construction and error-correction of the synthetic genome, it was transplanted into a recipient cell to produce a living bacterial cell with a synthetic genome.  Existing limitations and future applications of these techniques be explored.  Also, implications of this accomplishment and future directions of the field of synthetic biology will briefly be discussed.