Scientists Create First Cell Controlled by Synthetic Genome

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This, and thank you for clarifying this for me. im a dunce when it comes to actual scientific terms, and trying to reiterate how i interpret things, but thats basically what i meant by that comment "I'm already starting to think we're one step closer to Terminator with this mixed with the advent of Ferrofluids;" nanotechnology will eventually reach a point where computers can be made so small they can be fitted into micromachines. combine that with a liquid metal thats capable of changing its form via magnetic forces, and... computer synthesized cells(?), and you've got the basics of a Terminator by my book. (note: never seen any of the Terminator movies, but i know enough of the lore of the machines.)

You completely missed posting the second page of the linked article you provided which contains the following text:

Once the synthetic DNA segment reached the desired length the scientists injected it into a Mycoplasma bacterium that had had its own DNA removed earlier. Needless to say, the process of assembling such a lengthy piece of synthetic DNA was complicated.

"I hope the day comes when making genomes is something everyone can do," said Pamela Silver, a systems biologist at Harvard Medical School.

The new, synthetic DNA "booted up" the bacterium, but not without a few problems; several of the synthesized genes didn't work properly. And the genes that did work didn't do anything particularly useful, at least by human standards.

The Mycoplasma bacteria grew and reproduced, but that was about all. Within several years however, Venter, along with dozens of other researchers and companies, hope to create more exciting bacteria that will speed up the production and drive down the costs of biofuels, vaccines and drugs.

Venter has teamed up with a major oil and gas company, and a pharmaceutical company, to help realize these goals.

Venter's work falls into a nascent field of science known as synthetic biology. Synthetic biology builds on the decades-old field of genetic engineering. Unlike genetic engineering, where scientists introduce a handful of new genes into an organism, synthetic biology aims to reprogram entire organisms, including bacteria and viruses.

A Step on the Way to Artificial Life?

The creation and insertion of a synthetic genome more than one million base pairs is a technical landmark, said Frances Arnold, a synthetic biologist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. He says the feat showcases scientists' ability to precisely manipulate long sections of DNA.

But before consumers see any benefit several significant hurdles have to be solved. One of the biggest problems is that scientists are still searching for the specific genetic code to produce cheap drugs, biofuel and other products.

"We can write anything we want," said Arnold. "The problem is that we don't know what to write."

The experiment was successful in the fact that a host genome was taken up by the cell. But the traits encoded by that host were largely not expressed and described to have no large importance in terms of human quantification. In general if they didn't attempt to insert the whole genome, then this experiment would be a failure as the genetic exchange didn't have a benefit for humanity... which is why we use genetic engineering in the first place...