‘Niet alleen gesprek in’

De ondernemingsraad (or) verstuurt binnenkort een brief naar alle medewerkers waarin onder meer deze oproep staat. Letterlijk staat er: ‘Wij adviseren u dringend om, als u wordt uitgenodigd voor een gesprek met uw leidinggevende, iemand mee te nemen naar dit gesprek!’. Dat kan volgens de or een vakbondsconsulent zijn, een juridisch adviseur via de rechtsbijstandsverzekering of een collega of kennis. De or vervolgt met het advies in ieder geval niet akkoord te gaan met een regeling ‘zonder u grondig op de hoogte te hebben gesteld van de gevolgen’. De ondernemingsraad raadt medewerkers af om al tijdens een eerste gesprek een handtekening te zetten onder een formulier of regeling. Werknemers hebben vier weken bedenktijd. De or adviseert iedereen van die tijd gebruik te maken. 

Or-voorzitter Dineke Heersma benadrukt dat de TU goede regelingen heeft en dat de intenties goed zijn. “Maar in de uitvoering gaat het wel eens mis. Dat horen we van de vakbonden en op de werkvloer. Daarom zeggen we: voel je je bedreigd of voel je je zenuwachtig, neem iemand mee.”

Scientists were quoted making these seemingly fantastic claims in an editorial article in Nature. So what created all the fuss? In the May 20th issue of Science, researchers at the J. Craig Venter Institute reported that they had created a synthetic copy of a bacterial genome and used it to commandeer the cell of a closely related species. Or, as Venter put it himself in New
Scientist: ‘We did not create life from scratch: we transformed existing life into new life. […] it’s proof that it is possible to …create a cell with no biological ancestor.’

Nature reported that the American researchers started off with a highly accurate genome sequence they had copied from the bacterium Mycoplasma mycoides. Using this as a template, they ordered a set of short DNA strands, each about 1,000 base pairs long, from a DNA-sequencing company, and then inserted these strands into a yeast cell, where the yeast’s own genetic machinery strung them together into a copy of the natural M. mycoides genome. They transplanted this genome into a cell of a closely related bacterial species, which subsequently took on the characteristics of M. mycoides.
Synthetic biology’s ultimate goal is to design life forms, much like engineers design computers or cars. Professor Cees Dekker, head of the faculty of Applied Sciences’ department of bionanoscience, believes this breakthrough fuels the discussion about whether this is possible. “It’s an intriguing concept to think about building life using loose building blocks.”
Dekker however doesn’t agree with Venter when he says that he made a cell with no biological ancestors, with the culprit being that Venter still used an existing cell.

Around the world people are also trying to make synthetic protocells. In Dekker’s department, for instance, dr. Christophe Danelon tries to build cell membranes with ion channels and all sorts of other proteins required for cellular processes. His very ambitious aim is to make an artificial protocell equipped with a synthetic genome that can provide itself with energy, reproduce and evolve.

“I’ve thought this over for a long time”, Dekker says. “From basic principles I cannot rule out that it is possible to assemble a living object out of components. It might even happen during my lifetime.”
Will it also be possible to bring extinct species back to life? That’s a whole other ball game, according to Dekker: “Image that we could obtain the complete DNA sequence of a Neanderthal. We would then still need to place it in a suitable cell. And that would be a eukaryotic cell, which makes it all much more complicated.”

In Venter’s project a prokaryotic cell was used, Dekker explains. Only bacteria and microorganisms belonging to the kingdom of Archae have these kinds of simple cells. They lack many cellular structures that are present in eukaryotic cells, the cells that all other forms of life are made of (except viruses). Jurassic Park is still a long way off.