Xueba's technology tree

Chapter 239 Artificial Life

May 2023, 5, today will be forever etched in the history of science and technology.

Wang Xiaoxiao, a scientist of Xinghuo Science and Technology, has created a living single-celled organism in a laboratory under the Institute of Genetics.

This is the first life synthesized by scientists. It breaks the forbidden zone of life and can dig out the code hidden in the gene of life.

Zhou Yu watched Wang Xiaoxiao experiment. He was testing a single-celled organism about the size of a yeast cell with purple flagella.

This is a single-celled organism artificially created by scientists and named Violet Algae. It converts carbon dioxide into starch and stores it in the body under sunlight.

It is a single-celled organism that does not exist in nature. It is an artificial life that synthesizes deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) one base pair by one base pair by scientists.

Violet algae already have the basic characteristics of all life, that is survival and reproduction.

Violet algae can absorb the energy of sunlight through the structure similar to chloroplast in the cell body, and convert carbon dioxide and water into starch.

It absorbs energy in a plant-like way and continues to survive.

Violet algae can also complete cell self-replication and complete cell reproduction.

Zhou Yu looked at Wang Xiaoxiao who was doing the experiment. He didn't expect Wang Xiaoxiao to be able to achieve this step and truly create artificial life.

Since the last century, scientists have discovered that the genetic material of most organisms is deoxyribonucleic acid. Scientists hope to eliminate useless genes and form the simplest life.

Their efforts have all failed without exception. The laboratory can synthesize some large molecular proteins, and can graft genes from one species to another.

But scientists have not been able to edit DNA to the point of creating life.

The laboratory can produce life that does not exist in nature, which means that scientists have completely mastered the genetic code.

Only by knowing the specific function of which gene and getting all the functional genes can scientists freely splice out DNA and form a living individual.

Scientists must understand which gene is responsible for respiration, which gene is responsible for reproduction, which gene is responsible for sensing the environment, and which gene controls protein expression. The most basic life has at least tens of thousands of genes, which control the complex activities of organisms .

These are the important components of deoxyribonucleic acid. It is impossible to synthesize living cells without understanding the specific functions of genes.

Zhou Yu looked at Violet Algae, and he understood the meaning of the successful synthesis of this species.

Except for HIV, the genetic material of all life is deoxyribonucleic acid, which is transcribed into ribonucleic acid (RNA) through transcription.

Ribonucleic acid floats from the nucleus or the center of the cell to the cytoplasm. Except for viruses, every living cell has ribosomes.

The ribosome is a structure that expresses ribonucleic acid as polypeptides, and polypeptides form proteins through spatial folding.

This is how genetic material controls the formation of proteins.

Deoxyribonucleic acid is an organic compound with complex molecular structure.

Exist in the nucleus as a component of chromosomes.

The function is to store genetic information.DNA molecules are huge, made up of nucleotides.

The nitrogenous bases of nucleotides are adenine, guanine, cytosine and thymine, and the pentose sugar is deoxyribose.

Deoxyribonucleic acid consists of a pair of polynucleotide strands coiled around a common central axis.

The sugar-phosphate chains are on the outside of the helix, with the bases facing in.

The two polynucleotide strands are connected by hydrogen bonds between the bases, forming a fairly stable combination
Cytosine, guanine, thymine, and adenine are paired to form deoxyribonucleic acid, and they are referred to as "C", "G", "T" and "A" respectively.

The pairing rule is that C matches G, T matches A, C and G are connected by 3 hydrogen bonds, and T and A are connected by 2 hydrogen bonds.

Every three base pairs on the deoxyribonucleic acid are transcribed into three corresponding ribonucleic acids, and these three ribonucleic acids correspond to one amino acid, and the arrangement and combination of amino acids are different to form proteins with various functions.

Seeing Wang Xiaoxiao stop working, Zhou Yu hurriedly asked: "Director Wang, how about the species of purple orchid algae? Judging by its current activity, it has met the conditions for becoming a life."

Wang Xiaoxiao's tense expression relaxed, nodded and said: "Mr. Zhou, Viola algae has been tested by us. It is indeed a kind of life. Our project is successful, and the gene fragments we discovered are real and effective."

"We humans have tens of millions of gene fragments, but 99% of the gene fragments are invalid fragments, and they do not express any of the proteins that make up the human body.

The success of our project will allow us to obtain the genetic ruler, effectively verify the human gene situation, develop medical agents and surgical solutions targeting human genes, and solve diseases caused by human genetic defects.

This time, we only used 5000 million base pairs to synthesize artificial life purple algae through experimental synthesis.

This is definitely a great discovery in the history of biology. If it were not for the quantum simulation computing function of quantum computers, we would not be able to explore the code of genes.

Only with the powerful parallel computing capabilities and quantum simulation computing capabilities of quantum computers can we calculate the amino acid represented by every three base pairs and produce the corresponding protein.

This is a very complex process that previously could not be efficiently calculated by supercomputers, but quantum computers can easily solve it.

I hope that the company will increase the number of quantum computers in the future. I have calculated that the DNA of purple blue algae has already occupied 90% of the quantum computer resources.

If we study more advanced life again, in addition to improving the functions of quantum computers, we can only use multiple quantum computers to perform parallel operations. "

When Zhou Yu heard Wang Xiaoxiao's request, he immediately agreed: "The number of quantum computers should be increased, and Zhang Wei and the others have already designed the structure of quantum computers.

Quantum computers will soon be ready for industrial production, so you don't need to worry about that. "

"I'm really worried." Wang Xiaoxiao said with some worry.

"Through the Violet Algae project, we have figured out the code of the gene, and we know the two strands of deoxyribonucleic acid, which strand is the one that expresses the protein, and why it is dominated by this strand.

Knowing the basic structure of the region that makes up the cell membrane on the DNA, you can quickly find the region of the cell membrane on the DNA of any organism.

We know the genetic codes of cells such as single-cell ribosomes, and now we can analyze the genes of the human body as long as we find the secrets of cell differentiation and synergy in multicellular organisms.

The deoxyribonucleic acid of higher organisms is composed of billions of base pairs, and it is necessary to have huge quantum computer resources to calculate a feasible experimental plan. "

When Zhou Yu heard Wang Xiaoxiao's opinion, he nodded solemnly and said: "You wait for my good news, and I will let other departments produce a few quantum computers as soon as possible to meet your scientific research needs."

(End of this chapter)