What is the main advance with the creation of the smallest synthetic genome, JCVI-syn3.0? What Craig Venter's team has done in making this minimal genome is to identify dear gaps in our knowledge about what makes a cell survive. They have essentially removed sections of the genome one by one to see what happens - in other words, to see if it dies and to try and understand why. What new insights has the bacterium given about life's minimum requirements? The failure of a predecessor organism with even fewer genes led to the refinement of the rules for designing a genome, and identified a group of indispensable genes with functions we now need to investigate.
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