Craig Venter thinks send living organisms in other galaxies is fiction; however he believes that it is more realistic to print them on site using digital representations of their genome.

He likes to call it "biological teleporter".
Geneticist superstar who has mapped the first human genome in 2000, is facing a new challenge: to revolutionize the world of medicine.
Essentially, dispatched back and forth via email medicines and organisms from Earth to other planets, it would seem only one of the possible future implications of a device developed by Synthetic Genomics, American company founded by Venter, famous geneticist and biotechnologist.
It's called 'Bio-Digital Converter', DBC (Biological to Digital Converter) and, without any 'cover' design, like a set of technological bullshit arranged randomly on a table.
The device is able to make digital representations of DNA from the Internet, and to rebuild on site using those that are the building blocks of life: adenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine, which then are the same ones who have paid the initial title the movie Gattaca.
"As every printer needs cartridges, but the color instead there are bottles of chemicals," Venter told us on the phone; "It is the complex biology itself with which our small cells lining the DNA, in very, very small scale."
The DBC.
Image: Nature Biotechnology / Venter et.
to the.
Venter, a pioneer of human genome sequencing, has been the focus of some of the greatest advances in genetics of our times.
He announced the coming of the DBC for years and wrote a book in 2013 'Life at the Speed of Light'.
In the same vein, Synthetic Genomics has developed a precursor to the DBC, called BioXp, can reconstruct the DNA, but not entirely from scratch.
In 2013 BioXp was used to synthesize a vaccine against avian influenza, and the same Elon Musk of SpaceX expressed interest in experiencing futuristic technology DBC to print terraformanti bacteria on Mars.
With a scientific paper published in Nature Biotechnology, the converter is now much more than a futuristic rarity.
The paper describes the system in detail, and highlights some of its achievements: it is capable of printing DNA, RNA (the key to decode the DNA instructions), viruses, certain types of vaccines, and bacteriophages to kill infections.
It can also print the synthetic bacteria Venter created by last year, that is 437 genes, according to geneticist, the simplest form of life ever.
This paper, together with the attention that Venter hopes will collect, could be the starting point of a world revolution in medicine - as long as enough people decide to invest in the idea.
For now, it still has some problems: the synthesis of DNA by means of this device is still an inefficient and expensive process, in addition to not being totally foolproof, but Venter is optimistic.
"If for example we had a DBC connected to our computers, we might receive by mail insulin or a vaccine, the machine would produce for us ready," says Venter.
"Think of all the drugs based on proteins that are there, and the ability to receive them by mail rather than buy them at the pharmacy.
We are preparing a conceptually very, very different world. "
An illustration of the printer and how it works.
Image: Nature Biotechnology
The idea, as we describe Venter, is that every large hospital, clinic, or society in the world, owns a DBC.
Thus, in the event of an outbreak, the vaccine could be sent all over the world as a digital file, in minutes and be produced locally instead of being stored and then shipped.
"We may be able to stop a pandemic in the bud," says Venter.
We phoned Daniel Gibson, Synthetic Genomics scientist who invented the DNA assembly process known as 'Gibson Assembly'.
As Venter, he has shown enthusiasm for the short-term applications of DBC, but about the future implications in space had a more pragmatic approach, "best not to get too distracted."
Venter recognizes Gibson much of the work done to develop the DBC, and both are well aware that there is still some way to go before being able to print larger DNA constructs of a virus - perhaps even people - in space.
Unfortunately, the process is still extremely expensive, "During DNA synthesis, 99.999 percent of the raw materials is lost," Gibson says.
"We're trying to fix it, so instead of building two genes with 20 liters of waste, will produce 2000 genes only losing some material milliliter.
This obviously would drastically reduce the cost of synthesis, as well as waste, improve the process and make it more robust. "
An illustration of the automated steps of the converter.
Image: Nature Biotechnology
But there is a further concern by Gibson, and that is that the synthesis of DNA is often subject to introduce undesired mutations.
The DBC as described in the scientific paper in Nature, works well with regard to DNA constructs which currently can not print, but moving to more complex organisms, the risk of introducing mutations would increase.
"Just a DNA incorrect basis for compromise the functioning of a protein, to render ineffective a therapy, or to affect the properties of a cell," warns Gibson functionality.
To allow the DBC to realize the most distant ideas Venter, Synthetic Genomics will employ all the existing technology, and all that that has not yet been developed, Gibson says.
"Think about how fast we have gone from the plane of the Wright brothers to supersonic jets, or the earliest methods of synthesis of DNA to create a human genome on average in 12-15 minutes, 24 hours a day," said Venter, who in 2007 He sequenced and delivered to the world its own genome.
"Here, the DBC is much closer to the plane of the Wright brothers rather than to organic teleportation."
Although it would never work, revolutionizing the way the world deals with the epidemic waves, beginning a new era of ready-to-wear medicine, it would still be a pretty good consolation prize.
This article originally appeared on Motherboard US.

From Vice