At the beginning of the twentieth century, diabetes was in many ways a death sentence. Things we take for granted now, like the development of an insulin supply for medical uses, did not exist. Only in 1922 was enough prepared for use in humans; and from then until 1965, insulin had to be prepared by rendering down the pancreatic tissues of animals. You just had to hope you were not allergic to those animals (e.g., oxen), but if you were, there was a serious risk you would be S.O.L. Only in 1965 was the full synthesis of insulin performed.
Thirteen years later, in 1978, Herbert Boyer et al. at Genentech did a pretty mind-blowing thing. The amino-acid sequence for human insulin was known, at that time; it was fairly simple to reverse-translate the sequence into nucleic acid sequences. A gene for human insulin was inserted into Escheria coli bacteria, and they were cultured: the first bacteria to be manipulated into producing human hormones.
The RAW AWESOME factor of this is, I think, pretty high.
That was only the start, though. Many other compounds were soon to follow, being synthesized by various organisms. Human growth hormone, for example, or proteins associated with Hepatitis B, to make a vaccine. Ice-structuring protein to keep ice cream smooth. The uses are pretty much limitless.
There's more to it than just producing compounds we can inject into ourselves. I believe it was nearly 20 years ago, now, that someone developed bacteria that can chew up petrochemical spills, and would emit light while doing it - a pleasant greenish glow. I think I have a photo of George H. W. Bush beaming over a beaker full of it somewhere.
The wonders of the world are legion. But definitely, being able to produce pretty much whatever chemical we like out of slime in a dish is up there. The question is, why hasn't it gone further?
Novelist Robin Cook wrote a story in which a sociopathic genius created a secret personal laboratory, hidden on the property of a Genentech-like corporation, stealing from the company to fund himself with a vat full of E. coli producing cocaine.
I myself worked in a laboratory where we used a sodium-channel blocker, octahydro-12-(hydroxymethyl)-2-imino-5,9:7,10a-dimethano-10aH-[1,3]dioxocino[6,5-d]pyrimidine-
-4,7,10,11,12-pentol [deep breath] or "tetrodotoxin", which is a bit of a misnomer. The toxin was originally isolated from pufferfish, the same ones which are that delicacy for the borderline suicidal in Japan. They get it by eating shellfish which either eat or play host to bacteria that produce the stuff. Now, tetrodotoxin is ridiculously expensive. It's probably worth more than its weight in any precious metal of your choice. Granted, there aren't too many applications for it, but the supply is even smaller than the demand. We could make that.
We could probably mass-produce some drugs, like tamoxifen, without needing to cut up yews. I know it used to require Pacific yew, I think there's a synthetic method now that uses a less endangered yew, but why cut up trees in the first place? (I like trees.)
There's currently some stuff about trying to produce medications or spider silk from goat's milk, which gives me a hell of a chuckle. That too is pretty impressive. I don't mean to talk down to that - I mean, silk out of a goat is also mind-blowing, isn't it? But it's less obviously immediately useful than, say, medicines. Go on, what do you think?
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Previous MSPW diaries can be found as follows (and don't read them if you're trying to preserve your unwarped mind):
MSPW 12: Lightning in a jar
MSPW 11: If you can control machines, they can control you
MSPW 10: Powered armor leads the way
MSPW 9: Noise-Marines, forward!
MSPW 8: Rapid prototyping brings engineering to the masses
MSPW 7: Putting Mentos and Diet Coke to good use
MSPW 6: Why Bjorn the Fel-Handed is probably unhappy
MSPW 5: Combining the latest concepts in farming and power generation
MSPW 4: Project Orcon, or why pigeons make good pilots
MSPW 3: Can cuttlefish drive?
MSPW 2: The hafnium bomb
MSPW 1: Building a better skunk