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WASHINGTON (AP) - Talk about identity theft: Scientists changed one species of bacteria into another by performing a complete gene swap.
It's a step in the quest to one day create artificial organisms, part of a bigger project to custom-design microbes that could produce cleaner fuels. But the way it was performed, dubbed a "genome transplant," has genetics specialists buzzing.
"This is equivalent to changing a Macintosh computer to a PC by inserting a new piece of software," declared genome-mapping pioneer J. Craig Venter, senior author of the new research published Thursday by the journal Science.
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