He 'challenges' God used to commit suicide in Vietnam

In the autobiography For a moment, 64-year-old TS bio-scientist John Craig Venter, the author of the invention of "artificial life" shocked the scientific world, said: his desire to devote originated. from the suicide attempt during the Vietnam War.

>> Create living cells for the first time

As a medical doctor, Craig Venter came to Vietnam in the right of the 1968 general offensive and rebellion. When he could not save the lives of hundreds of American soldiers, he felt so terrified that he decided himself. death by swimming to the sea to exhaustion without returning. In the autobiography, he said: 'At first I felt angry because the shark ruined my plan. Then I was scared. What the hell am I doing? I want to live.'.

After that, Venter tried to swim to the shore. 'I lay on the sand, naked for hours. I feel very tired but out of tension. I want my life to be meaningful. I want to make a difference. I found myself shaking off all, feeling energized. ' After a suicide attempt in Vietnam, he traveled around with ambition to 'discover what Darwin had missed'.

When Venter claimed to create life in the lab for the first time, some scientists compared his discovery to the discovery of Galileo or Einstein. 'At first everyone seemed to look down on his discovery. But they stopped laughing when they realized the talent of the biologist and that the artificial gene sequence was not a matter of chemistry, but of the power of computers, ' said physicist Freeman Dyson.

Craig Venter's invention 'challenges' God or opens the door to hell?Photo: loranablog

Professor Julian Savulescu, expert on professional ethics at Oxford University (UK), said: 'Venter is opening the basic door in human history. He is approaching God's role: creating an unprecedented artificial life . We need new standards to assess the safety of this study and protect it from being abused. wrong purposes like terrorism '.

'What is really dangerous is the ambition of scientists to take full and unlimited control of nature, like the role of God', said Dr. David King, Director of the Warning Organization. Human gene (English), said.

However, Venter said that worry sooner or later disappeared. 'The concept of the replacement of God's role often appears when some breakthrough is related to biology,' he said. Previously, cell findings, treatments for infertility, fetal imaging, atomic division, organ transplantation, sex change or cosmetic surgery were also criticized as interventions. into the role of God.

- 'The ability to create artificial life, which is only possible in science fiction stories, is not far away. I read this news but felt afraid for human intellect. Is it possible to have things like in fantasy stories that humans create artificial creatures and they turn to destroy the people who created them? "

- 'The evaluation of this invention is good or bad depending on the intended use. It can create a variety of bacterial or cell cells that have nuclei to create proteins or beneficial bacteria, 'said Dr. Tran Van Khoa, Chairman of the Department of Genetic Biology, Military Medical Academy.

- 'Previously, scientists could transplant a gene segment into bacterial cells to make medicine, but the quality was unstable. The invention of John Craig Venter helps actively control the growth process of cells, allowing proactive technology process to create suitable protein for medicine materials', Associate Prof. Dr. Truong Nam Hai, Director of Public Institute biotechnology.