How bioengineering bacteria may lengthen life spans
In his nonfiction book Tomorrow Now, sci-fi author and futurist Bruce Sterling begins by describing a world where genetically engineered bacteria have transformed, well, pretty much everything:
"... basically, you look like an athlete or supermodel. You look that way not because you're all egotistically eager to stand out from the norm but because that is your norm. An athlete or a supermodel is what men and women are willing to pay to look like. ... You have no tooth decay, no dandruff, no enlarged pores. Though you read too much, you have no glasses. ... Your bathroom cabinet is full of unguents, greases, and perfumes. There are some pills in there, but most of them do not contain drugs. Instead, they contain living, domesticated organisms that make drugs while living inside you. Some of the "pills" are cameras, with tiny sensors and onboard processing. Nothing in your medicine cabinet is sterile, not even the bandages. Modern bandages contain living organisms that are good for wounds."
He's not the only one with ideas on this front. In the most recent issue of Popular Science magazine, longevity guru Aubrey de Grey speculates that you can hack particular soil bacteria and then inject them into human cells to help break down the waste that builds up inside of cells, which can lead to heart disease and other maladies. But instead of modifying existing bacteria—as is already done, for instance, to manufacture insulin—maybe we can just make our own. Scientists at Rockefeller University in New York have managed to create "primitive cells" that can churn out proteins, although they cannot replicate or evolve like real bacteria. According to an article in the journal Nature, these synthetic cells could make simple "protein factories, perhaps more easily tailored to make specific products."
