Life at the Speed of Light: From the Double Helix to the Dawn of Digital Life

This is a serious, scholarly book. I had borrowed a copy from the library, but after reading the first chapter, all about the history of biochemistry, how the idea of how life can derive from non-biological chemicals, and the work that built up to today, I had to own the book so that I can read it carefully and several times, re-read portions and try to connect ideas, out of sequence.

In this book, Dr. Venter connected the work of so many people, from many different approaches, for nearly a century, that made it possible for us to do the kind of research that we are doing today. Whereas I don't think this book is completely objective or completely true -- there is certainly 'confirmation bias,' where certain works were chosen to support Dr. Venter's point of view, but it captures the main researchers and explains their work in accessible terms, so that I can look up other sources to decide for myself whether or not I agree with Dr. Venter's explanation. For me, this is a reference book for beginners.

Some years ago I stumbled upon on an article discussing about “Synthetic Biology” and remembering not paying too much attention to it seemed to me as Synthetic biology was more of an area touching at science-fiction than actually Science.

I was not wrong… but not right either.

It was untilLATSOL-204x313 some months ago researching books on molecular biology that I found “Life at the Speed of Light: From the Double Helix to the Dawn of Digital Life”by “J. Craig Venter which happened to be about this subject and after reading the book cover to cover the book opened my eyes on a whole field I wasn’t aware of.

As it is clearly said within the book, most of molecular biology and related fields fall towards a reductionist experimental approach while synthetic biology ultimate goal is all about creation.

The book is an beautiful synthesis of all the major scientific breakthroughs (and when suited J. Craig Venter involvement) that lead to the historical event of the first “living” “synthetic” cell ever made in history[1].

Going throughout the history we rediscover the key experiments that went against “vitalism” during the 19th century to the many stepping stones from the 50’s to the 70’s that lead to the foundation of today’s molecular biological knowledge.

But most importantly I discovered that it was Schrödinger with this book “What is life” was the first that aimed to describe life with physics and chemistry alone and that the ultimate success of J. Craig Venter was he and his team managed to leave evidence of that heritage.

In summary what happened is that J. Craig Venter and this team managed to transplant a synthetic bacterial genome to another bacterial species and used protein expression visualization to point that indeed DNA is the software of life as the cell had changed to a “synthetic cell”.

More technically they first started out by creating their first synthetic genome by using a bacteria called M. genitalium[2] as it was the smallest known genome that could constitute a living self-replicating cell. They cut it up into 101 cassettes (DNA snippets) insert to a yeast cell (eukaryotic) and reconstitute the synthetic genome with the Deinococcus (bacteria) repair system.

Secondly with another intermediate experiment, they successfully transplanted the genome of M. mycoides to M. capricolum another bacterial species. This illustrated the principle of DNA as the software of life.

But one of the most challenging aspects was moving the synthetic chromosome within the yeast cell to a prokaryotic cell (bacteria) as to create synthetic life.

Since bacteria’s have different systems of DNA methylation (as to protect their own restrictive enzymes) and DNA conformations to yeast cells. As such they could only be used as an intermediate step towards their goal of a synthetic cell.

M. genitalium became too problematic for this execution so after initial reluctance the team switched to the M. mycoides as the genome to be “synthesized”. Long story short they succeed and made headlines in May 2010.

The implications are immense as they managed to go from a digital code to chemical expression.

As J. Craig Venter extrapolates this idea (translate code to chemical form) in his book, he visions a future where hypothetically this could lead to an endless amount of customized solutions available worldwide within an instant. Imagine a world where vaccines, strains, antibiotics could be sent within seconds abroad or even to space. That is a future that could very well happen within our lifetimes.

I'm a glass-is-half-full kind of guy, usually able to find silver linings in the darkest of situations. And I genuinely respect anyone who has the courage to write and publish a book of their thoughts, especially someone as smart as Venter. But I say all of this as a preface to the fact that there isn't much good to say about Venter's Life at the Speed of Light.

I'm reasonably familiar with Venter's work on the human genome and now this synthetic life project - and sometimes the book reads autobiographically - but that's not it's major focus. The best way to describe the narrative would be to think of a medical study. If you're unfamiliar, it contains: an abstract (summary) of the findings, background for the investigation, methods used in the experiment, results of performing the experiment, a discussion about the impact and some closing thoughts for further investigation. Venter is essentially guiding you through the history of genetics by showcasing these study details, often in extreme detail.

You have to give Venter respect for this approach, as his knowledge of the subject matter, citations of colleagues and attention to detail are without parallel. You'll learn something here, but none of that makes a good book. And the laborious way in which we are introduced to the concepts makes this a painful read. I don't often put books down but I was so turned off by this title, it took four attempts for me to finish it.

Readers never get the philosophical discussion that is so often teased throughout the text. Someone pursuing artificial life should have a lot to say on the subject. And if you've ever seen Venter on Charlie Rose, he most certainly does! Yet it never gets translated into this book. Instead, we are left with a methodical march through history. For such an important figure on the cutting edge of science, this book is endlessly disappointing.

The hardest part about this book is that I have no idea for whom it was written. If you're looking for pop-science (remember the ask from the publisher: 'What is life?'), there are hundreds of better written titles that deliver more interesting information. If you want the detail of the genetic revolution, Watson's 'DNA' does a better job or just look towards Khan Academy's coursework, the open MIT project or YouTube for some explanations. It's hard for me to understand how this book has garnered a 4.5 star rating on Amazon. I'm wondering if these people read the same book that I did? I feel bad giving out a two star rating like this, but it's deserved and you should avoid wasting your time with this book.

To much doom and gloom on a very exciting achievement

This single star does not characterize the book as much as it does my experience reading the first 40 pages. Uncharacteristically I stopped reading this book when I realized that understanding the material required a rather substantial familiarity with microbiology, something I am unfortunately lacking. Although I got this book for $3 at a library sale, I did not feel that I got my money's worth.

Extremely bio-nerdy. Lots of detail about cellular mechanics and biochemistry. Really good history of the field of biotech, despite being very much The World According To J. Craig -- fine, I'm inclined to let him have that one, as he is a giant in the field. But this is definitely not a layperson's book. I have a fairly serious life-sciences and software background, and the detail in this book really wore me down at times. There's a ton to absorb here, and you're not to understand all of it.

VERY INTERESTING!

What Venter means by “life at the speed of light” is the digitalization of DNA that can then be sent in the form of light waves anywhere in the universe. This also means that DNA can be sent to us from a distant civilization. It also means that if we do discover life in the sands of Mars or under the surface of Europa or elsewhere in the Solar System we need not bring it back in a space craft but can send the digitized sequence as electromagnetic radiation.

But even more than this, as in the subtitle of this book, we should be able to reconstruct the DNA of some possible Martian microbe and bring it to life in a lab here on earth.

But there’s even more. Venter shows that we can by manipulation of digitized DNA create new life forms or modify existing ones. (That would be genetic engineering gone viral, so to speak.) And it is happening right now. As I write this in October, 2016 I can reference a story in the journal “Nature” about a story in the journal “Science” in which Venter has created a living cell that he says constitutes a brand new, artificial species.

So this is an exciting book in what it presages. I give it only four stars because to be candid you really have to have some background in molecular biology to fully appreciate the text. It’s not just the terminology that is forbidding. It’s the fact that even if you know what the words mean it is difficult to follow the expression since it is the procedures and techniques that need to be visualized to be understood. Furthermore the text is dense. Even the history of molecular biology that Venter recounts is full of minute detail. It’s clear that Venter wanted to be sure he understood what other scientists had learned as he proceeded to famously sequence the human genome and then go on to create synthetic life.

The keynote of the book is from Erwin Schrodinger’s famous short book from 1944, “What Is Life?” In that book, which I read many years ago, Schrodinger lays out the prospect for the reduction of life to physics and chemistry. What Schrodinger wanted to dispel is the idea that life requires a certain vital essence (“élan vital” from Henri Bergson) to be alive. Venter’s book is in a sense a celebration of Schrodinger’s vision. To quote Venter:

“As the Industrial Age is drawing to a close, we are witnessing the dawn of an era of biological design. Humankind is about to enter a new phase of evolution.” (p. 7)

Note the term, “biological design.” Yes, we are going to be the Intelligent Designers of new life forms, very possibly our successors. And where that may lead we know not.

--Dennis Littrell, author of “The World Is Not as We Think It Is”

Great book by an amazing scientist

This is a compendium from a series of speeches and essays from J. Craig Venter, covering the discoveries in the field of molecular biology. particularly from a technology standpoint. For those of you unfamiliar with Venter, he was a key leader in the Human Genome Project. While some of the chapters are thick with scientific technique, others provide a good overall perspective of how the science of DNA has evolved over time and how it is moving forward with such creations as artificial life and some of the new arenas for genetic engineering.