Question: Could you create a virus or a bacteria mixing different chemicals?

Matt Bilton answered on 12 Nov 2014:

I couldn’t – I don’t have the right gadgets! But some scientists have claimed that they have made bacteria by mixing different chemicals (and using the right gadgets). Here is a New York Times article from 2010 in which they talk about a bacteria that was created with a ‘synthetic genome’: http://tinyurl.com/syntheticbacteria

Bacteria have cell walls and other bits & pieces that are a bit trickier to make from scratch from chemicals in a lab, so it’s the DNA needed for a bacteria to survive that has been made in this case from scratch in the lab. They used the empty shell of another bacteria to transplant the DNA into. But the ability to write the DNA of a bacteria, or virus, from scratch – using a computer, a machine or two and lots of chemicals and biochemicals is a very powerful tool, hopefully for making bacteria which do useful jobs and not those that cause disease!