Patenting life for profit

This morning, the news is full of the story that "science has created synthetic life". There are a couple of issues, that arise for me, not the least of which is it requires a Live cell to make it happen - so, it is not entirely "synthetic", though the DNA that the cell contains is synthetic. As an editorial at the Winnipeg Free Press put it:

Synthetic DNA of one bacterium was mixed with another and injected into a living cell, where, after one or two failed attempts, it thrived. It may not be, as many scientists claim, the actual creation of artificial life because it involves using things that are already living -- "poems are made by fools like me, but only God can make a tree," as Joyce Kilmer put it -- but it is definitely knocking on heaven's door.

I am not opposed to genetic research, at least not on religious or moral grounds, but I find sometimes that geneticists seem to be a little arrogant - like they can predict with certainty what changing genes will do! In this case, the first story I read called Venter a "maverick biologist and billionaire entrepreneur" which is not very inspiring . .. and is worrying. Clearly his intention is not the betterment of human-kind and the planet ecology, but a dash to make as much profit as possible by patenting life-forms and processes to own them, and to keep them from being used by others if they turn out to be beneficial or they can be used safely.

I am OK with safe experimentation of this kind - but with safeguards in case one "accidentally" makes something dangerous, and with a non-profit intent - I think that advances in medical -science and health care would all be well outside capitalism and the profit motive - otherwise I am concerned (not that it keeps me awake nights but it is nevertheless still worrying) that we may all get wiped out by some accidental plague - or a bacterium meant to eat oil - will start turning water into something we cannot use - think Ice Nine -

So I am not anti-science just find science for profit, especially when dealing with DNA, to be a potential accident waiting to happen.

From the Sydney Morning Herald:

"It's quite a radically different approach," biochemistry professor Ann Simpson of the University of Technology, Sydney said.

"You've got to be very careful when you willy-nilly send something into the environment and you can't control its spread.

"And you can't control a bacteria spread once you release it."

Professor Simpson said this form of artificial life was unlike other form of biomedical advances, where changes are contained within an individual, drug or crop that could be carefully checked before they are released into the environment.

"Bacteria have been known to mutate and change, and [this could] change into something that they didn't predict, and it could be a problem."

I think of all the issues with GMO's used to alter food crops and the issues that arise around ownership of patents and seeds and how it is increasing starvation -- and this is a worry.

Other discussion of this story may be found at:

http://theweek.com/article/index/203285/the-worlds-first-man-made-life-form-be-afraid

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/21/adventures-in-synthetic-biology/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science_and_environment/10138831.stm

http://www.heraldscotland.com/comment/ian-bell/is-this-man-playing-god-by-trying-to-create-artificial-life-1.1029621

What do you think about this?