'Artificial life' breakthrough announced by scientists

Synthetic Genome Brings New Life to Bacterium
"For 15 years, J. Craig Venter has chased a dream: to build a genome from scratch and use it to make synthetic life. Now, he and his team at the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) in Rockville, Maryland, and San Diego, California, say they have realized that dream.
In this week's Science Express, they describe the stepwise creation of a bacterial chromosome and the successful transfer of it into a bacterium, where it replaced the native DNA. Powered by the synthetic genome, that microbial cell began replicating and making a new set of proteins."
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/328/5981/958
Creation of a Bacterial Cell Controlled by a Chemically Synthesized Genome -- Gibson et al., 10.1126/science.1190719 -- Science
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/science.1190719

Researchers start up cell with synthetic genome : Nature News
"Daniel Gibson and his colleagues at the J. Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Maryland, synthesized the genome of the bacterium Mycoplasma mycoides, consisting of about 1.1 million base pairs. "
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100520/full/news.2010.253.html

'Artificial life' breakthrough announced by scientists - BBC News
The team was led by Dr Craig Venter of the J Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) in Maryland and California.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science_and_environment/10132762.stm

人工生命、完成見えた　米研究所、ゲノム合成し人工細菌 - 朝日新聞社
塩基配列が少なく、操作しやすい「マイコプラズマ・マイコイデス」という細菌をモデルにしたhttp://www.asahi.com/science/update/0520/TKY201005200555.html
「人工細菌」を作製＝合成DNAで増殖（時事通信）
米民間の「J・クレイグ・ベンター研究所」（メリーランド州）が21日、米科学誌サイエンス電子版に発表した。モデルに選んだ細菌のDNAをまねて化学合成し、入れ物代わりの別種の細菌に移植したところ、生きて活動し、増殖した
http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20100521-00000014-jij-soci