Evolution Machine: Genetic Engineering on Fast Forward

[TECH NEWS]

Peter Carr, a bioengineer at MIT Media Lab who is part of the group developing the technology, describes it as “highly directed evolution”. It is a strange combination of clumsiness and beauty. Sitting on a cheap-looking worktop is a motley ensemble of flasks, trays and tubes squeezed onto a home-made frame. Arrays of empty pipette tips wait expectantly. Bunches of black and gray wires adorn its corners. On the top, robotic arms slide purposefully back and forth along metal tracks, dropping liquids from one compartment to another in an intricately choreographed dance. Inside, bacteria are shunted through slim plastic tubes, and alternately coddled, chilled and electrocuted. The whole assembly is about a meter and a half across, and controlled by an ordinary computer. Say hello to the evolution machine. It can achieve in days what takes genetic engineers years. So far it is just a prototype, but if its proponents are to be believed, future versions could revolutionize biology, allowing us to evolve new organisms or rewrite whole genomes with ease. It might even transform humanity itself.

6/27/2011, Jo Martin, New Scientist