Abstract
When James Watson and Francis Crick described in a succinct 1953 report to Nature magazine their model of the DNA structure—the double helix—they clearly noted its importance for storing genetic information in a witty concluding remark [1]: “It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material.” Namely this specific pairing of DNA nucleobases with the unique double-helical shape of DNA molecules, which looks much like a spirally twisted ladder with two rails counterparting each other and being capable of coming apart like a zipper to enzymatically replicate this ladder in two identical copies, gives DNA the power to serve with great precision as a universal genetic information carrier for all living beings on Earth.
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Notes
- 1.
Foresight Institute is a leading nonprofit organization researching and fostering technologies of fundamental importance for the human future, focusing on molecular machine nanotechnology, cybersecurity, and artificial intelligence.
- 2.
Drexler’s original worry, shared later by other scientists, was about the feasible danger of replicating abiotic or mechanical biovorous nano-assemblers—parts of imaginary in vitro nanoscale factories capable of reproducing themselves—which could be developed in the lab by future nanotechnologists, and could then accidentally get away into the living world, where they consume the entire biosphere in a ravenous quest for fueling food, after which nothing remained there but an immense artificial mass of nano-assemblers he called “gray goo.” Yet, this hypothetical gray goo scenario is well applicable to artificial biotic nanoreplicators, too.
- 3.
The NIH Recombinant DNA Guidelines were first issued in 1976 in the Federal Register, and they are overseen and continually revised by the NIH Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee, who reviewed all related research activities in accordance with these guidelines.
- 4.
There are many additional dimensions of safety controls that can be engineered into designs for replicators, as discussed in the Foresight Guidelines for Responsible Nanotechnology Development (https://foresight.org/guidelines/current.php#Replicators).
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Demidov, V.V. (2020). Concluding Remarks. In: DNA Beyond Genes. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36434-2_6
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