Sometimes a paper has an abstract so clear that it just has to be quoted. Craig Venter and colleagues at the J Craig Venter Institutes in Maryland and San Diego have constructed a genome from scratch and inserted it into a mycoplasma cell so that it reproduces itself. Apart from using an existing mycoplasma cell as a sort of support structure for the DNA, this is as close to the creation of artificial life as anyone has ever come.
As the authors write: "We report the design, synthesis and assembly of the 1.08-Mbp Mycoplasma mycoides JCVI-syn1.0 genome starting from digitized genome sequence information and its transplantation into a Mycoplasma capricolum recipient cell to create new Mycoplasma mycoides cells that are controlled only by the synthetic chromosome. The only DNA in the cells is the designed synthetic DNA sequence, including 'watermark' sequences and other designed gene deletions and polymorphisms, and mutations acquired during the building process. The new cells have expected phenotypic properties and are capable of continuous self-replication."
Clearly, a new age in biology has begun.