ARTIFICIAL VIRUSES

BY MONICA DOBIEAMERICAN scientists have successfully developed a synthetic virus in only two weeks, creating a breakthrough technique encouraging researchers to believe that they may within 10 years be able to create viruses large enough to eat pollution and even create hydrogen fuel as a by-product.Genome pioneer Craig Venter and his team from the USA's Institute for Biological Energy Alternatives, pieced together the virus called phi-174, from short, single strands of synthetically produced, commercially available DNA known as oligonucleotides.Enzymes were used ...


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