Synthetic biology: DIY chromosomes

THE science of synthetic biology took an important step forward this week with the announcement in Science, by a team from Jef Boeke's laboratory at Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore, of the first completely synthetic yeast chromosome. This takes the field from the bacterial realm to that of creatures like man.That fungi and people are closely related may not be obvious to the average human being. But biologically it is true, because both are eukaryotes, meaning that they have proper cell n...