Craig Venter took a page out of Lynn Conway‘s book and was able to convert bits to the ultimate form of atoms: life. Venter and his team were able to create a novel living bacterium whose DNA atoms (genome) were determined by bits representing that DNA.
Venter’s bacterium wasn’t created solely from bits. In fact the process went from atoms to bits and then back to atoms.
The team started with a related bacterium, sequencing its DNA atoms to get an initial set of bits. They made some small modifications (including adding watermarks) to that bit sequence, and turned the sequence back into DNA atoms through a process Venter helped commercialize: DNA synthesis.
The team then “hollowed out” another related bacterium, removing that bacterium’s DNA. Finally they inserted the newly synthesized DNA into the hollowed-out bacterium, and it started acting, in all respects, as a new life form.
Atoms to bits to atoms to life.
