Sunday night I was flipping through the channels and as always, there was nothing on TV. As I grumbled to myself about the lack of good networking, one show caught my attention. “Ladies and gentlemen – what he has created is new life itself – a completely new, synthetic species. More with that story after these messages. TICK TICK TICK TICK.” What?! Captivated, I stared at that incessant 60 Minutes clock on the TV screen, impatiently waiting to learn if the stuff of science fiction movies had actually come true. Was Frankenstein created by some sick doctor that spent too much time at the Bodies exhibit? Was DNA from the Jurassic Era discovered and a whole zoo of prehistoric creatures about to be unleashed? Or did some crazy engineer actually design a conscious robot that could do all my house chores for me? I intently watched the story unfold on the TV…
Indeed – new life has been created. A new species of single-celled bacteria, unofficially named Mycoplasma laboratorium, was created by the J. Craig Venter Institute in California. The key thing about this new bacteria, is that it is completely synthetic – its DNA is totally man-made, and yet it is still capable of replicating all by itself. Woah... My mind reeled as I tried to grasp this incomprehensible new concept. The lead scientist, Dr. J. Craig Venter, held up on the TV screen a yellowed Petri dish with tiny specks of black in it that looked more like mold than anything else. And yet these tiny dots prove that humans are now capable of creating completely new life forms in a laboratory, simply by sequencing, synthesizing, and transplanting genomes – a feat that Dr. Venter called “miraculous,” right after he ironically denounced his belief in God.
60 Minutes explained that news of the miraculous discovery has reached President Obama, who recently held a meeting on the bioethical questions of Dr. Venter’s activities of “playing God.” After the program was over and I got over the initial shock of the breaking news, I began to think…
Humans have been meddling with genes, shaping new plants, and “playing God” for millennia. Ever since the dawn of agriculture, people have been selecting for certain plant traits and genes that are favorable to them – nutritional value or drought-tolerance for example. Through this selection process, people have greatly changed the genetic makeup of plants that are useful to them. This process continues today in food crops as scientists breed for the ability to be stored for extended periods of time on a grocery store shelf or for resistance to certain pests.
In the realm of ornamental horticulture, plant breeders also “play God.” By identifying individual plants with desirable traits such as uniform habit or flower quantity, breeders select for certain genes. Most ornamental plants for sale these days are grown from cuttings - which means that they are actually clones of one another with exactly the same genetic makeup. This guarantees that all the plants of a cultivated species will express the desirable trait.
Perhaps the craziest genetic feat of ornamental plant breeders is that they have managed to develop new plants from two wholly different genera. (If you remember, a genus is the taxonomic classification before a species.) If you go to your retail nursery shop in the spring, you’ll see one of these science fiction-worthy plants – Foamy Bells (X Heucherella). Foamy Bells were created by plant breeders who hybridized Coral Bells (Heuchera spp.) and Foamflower (Tiarella spp.). The intergeneric hybrid Foamy Bells would be like breeding a new animal from a domestic cat and a lion!
Photo: Foamflower is one of the parents of Foamy Bells. Above is 'Sugar and Spice' Foamflower (Tiarella 'Sugar and Spice').
Photo: Coral Bells is the other parent of Foamy Bells. Above is 'Citronelle' Coral Bells (Heuchera 'Citronelle').
Photo: Foamflower + Coral Bells = Foamy Bells. Below is 'Sunspot' Foamy Bells (X Heucherella 'Sunspot').
This photo courtesy of Missouri Botanical Garden PlantFinder. (http://www.mobot.org/gardeninghelp/plantfinder/plant.asp?code=B197)
Foamy Bells make great plants for a partially-shaded woodland garden with moist, well-drained soil. They come in a never-ending variety of colors and their bold leaves add unique texture to the garden. I guess we should blame all this meddling with genes on the Austrian monk, Gregor Mendel – if it wasn’t for his experiments with pea plants in the monastery garden, I’m sure the modern world would have no Foamy Bells.
I don’t know what the upshot was or will be of President Obama’s recent meeting on the bioethical questions of synthetic bioengineering, but I am sure that Dr. Venter will continue with his synthetic bacteria research. I’m also sure that plant breeders will continue to keep developing new, unique, and beautiful plants for the garden. Dr. Venter says it’s only a matter of time before his synthetic cells give rise to new biofuels and pharmaceuticals...and maybe even conscious robots to clean the house too, which would be great especially around the holidays! I guess we’ll have to wait and see… TICK TICK TICK TICK TICK
