Where does Chemistry ends and Biology starts?

Question

DNA when broken down is nothing but chemical constituents. When placed in a Cell, magically it performs all the functions. While we can create DNA, why we cannot create life?

Answer 1

Where does chemistry end and biology start?

  I would say chemistry occurs in a test tube, outside of a biological system. Plants can synthesize sugars biologically (within a biological system), and chemists can synthesize sugars (within a chemical system). Obviously there is overlap between the two, where the field of biochemistry emerged. For example, we can put chemical substances in the body (in vivo) to modify biological systems. Or what about using biological systems to produce chemicals we want (i.e. gene splicing to express a protein that normally isn't there)? That is biochemistry.

DNA placed in a cell does not magically perform functions. In fact DNA doesn't do anything by itself, really (you can generically say it "contains information"). Complex protein enzyme reactions read the DNA into RNA, the RNA is transported out of the nucleus and is used as a template for making a protein (called translation, converting the genetic code into proteins). So basically nucleic acids (DNA/RNA) contain information (ok so sometimes RNA acts like an enzyme, but lets keep it simple), and proteins have a function (as in enzymes that do things) or a structural component (like hair).

While we can create DNA... yeah, sorta. More often, we insert a sequence of DNA into an existing strand. We modify existing DNA. Someday we will have big machines that will be able to assemble the DNA or RNA base pair by base pair, but this is a long way down the road.

... why can't we create life? Well, we can, to some extent. We can take an existing cell, put the DNA we want in it, and then cause that cell to express the DNA into proteins that do things, and we can induce the cell to multiply into a tissue, or even a complete organism! This has been done many times, with varying degrees of success, with animals like Dolly the cloned sheep.

As far as making the whole cell from scratch, we're a long ways from that point, but that is feasible. Make a bubble (cell membrane), with nucleic acid inside, those enzymes that read DNA into RNA, and synthesize a ribosome (the thing that makes proteins from the RNA template), and you have synthesized a cell! Of course, we are a long way from that point.

And we get into the debate of what constitutes life. Most biologists consider viruses non-living (they have no metabolic activity, they require a host cell to do anything), but some consider them alive. Viruses would be much easier to make from scratch than the whole organism (as a described above).

That is a little interesting, but what is far more interesting is that we are very close to being able to take some stem cells and MAKING new tissues (like new heart tissue, if a patient had a heart attack and some tissue died). Curing diseases using stem cells. That is awesome, and not too far away. We should definitely promote that kind of research, given ethical guidelines (e.g. no cloning humans, no making new disease agents, etc).  

Answer 2

DNA is the blueprint of life. It's like anything that requires building: you can have the instructions, but it will not spontaneously build itself. Even though DNA codes for everything that comprises our bodies, we cannot fully create life. We can create proteins, anything that the DNA can code for. However, even when placed in a cell, it may not perform all the functions required. The cell must contain all the raw materials necessary to produce the proteins that the DNA calls for in order to achieve a final product.

We still do not know how to scientifically measure what people call "a soul". While we may have the biological aspect of the organism down, we still cannot create or instill anything close to what we could call a soul into the organism.

Additionally, life doesn't begin as specialized cells. When fertilization occurs and divisions begin, those cells are pluripotent stem cells. Even though we have DNA, without these initial pluripotent stem cells to divide and further specialize, an organism could possibly not be created.