#4 - Creating Humans

I know I told others within the program that I would stick to IT related innovations, but I've secretly been harboring a deep fascination with and researching the concept of manufacturing humans.  Sounds crazy?  I think it is.  But the more I looked into the idea, the more I realized that it's actually feasible today. Now, I'm not a biologist, geneticist, or bioengineer so I won't get into the nitty-gritty details of the following innovations, but if you look at them as a whole, I hope you realize as I have, that we've already designed/created everything we need to build a living, breathing, and thinking production line human being. 

It all began with a discussion regarding an innovation from the first round of the course blogs. Someone in the class presented the concept of 3D organ printing. Though we were all amazed by the technology, I began to wonder "why stop there?" The scene from "The Fifth Element"where the "Divine One" is recreated from the DNA of an existing cell began running through my mind; if you haven't seen the movie, here's the scene that I'm referring to (caution: minor nudity): 

In doing research, I've found that there's actually amazing similarities between creating IT products and humans (this article is starting to sound creepy).  For example, humans like computers run on hardware.  These physical components provide mechanical and electrical signaling that we both use and need in order to transport signals and process the data and actions that we want to move, see, and hear.  For humans, this is already being created with technologies and innovations such as 3D organ printing (ears, liver, heart, etc.), skeletal (bone) replication, skin generation from existing cells, and the recent amazing work that has been done in creating muscular tissue in a lab.   

For the most part, the creation of the physical (hardware) components of the human body has been the easiest to manufacture; no offense to bioengineers.  The bigger hurdle has been on the "software" side of humans; improving the DNA code. Now I should clarify that we've "technically" had the genetic code of humans for the past eight years after the Human Genome Project completed their 13 year project to map the DNA of humans.  The issue has been that for the past eight years, it's taken us a while to understand and decipher the elements of the code. Today, science is at the point where we not only understand DNA gene sequencing (i.e., the combination of amino acids that makeup eye color, height, male pattern baldness, etc.), but we're actually improving and modifying the genes of living organisms. In fact, gene "design" or "coding" is now done on computers much like how we code software; we are designing the operating system of life on computers. Another element in this puzzle is that a new innovation that self-replicates and changes the structural composition of DNA (much like the complex DNA structure of the "Divine One" in the movie) means that we can add even more genes and "reengineer" the human body to be in theory "better" than currently/naturally possible. We are creating humans for a lack of better words "….perfect."  

Now I don't know all of the implications and legal restrictions in manufacturing humans, but the point that I wanted to make is that the technology already exists today. The current patent laws regarding bioengineering means that these technologies are "owned" by corporations, so it will take the consolidation and/or partnerships between companies before a human can be manufactured.  This raises the highly sensitive debate of "when does life begin," but I ask, if we've already created all of the components necessary for life, whats the next step? It appears that we're heading in that direction already, but nobody seems to be putting the pieces together or looking at the long term implications. When will today's "Divine One" be created?  Why not tomorrow?