Researchers at the J. Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Md., say they have created the first self-replicating synthetic bacterial cell using man-made DNA. The 15-year, $40 million project consisted of synthesizing more than 1 million base pair chromosomes of a genome. The knowledge gained from the project could help develop biofuels, vaccines and other products beneficial to society, the Venter Institute contended. The Venter Institute team synthesized the 1.08 million base pair chromosome of a modified Mycoplasma mycoides genome.
