Slime mold Andi: the first non-human organism genetically modified to its own specifications
I. Recap: how to talk with a slime mold
In scientific research and real life alike, it can be difficult to learn about the motivations and reasoning of non-human organisms. As they do not talk, you cannot ask them directly and have to interpret their reactions to whatever it is that you are putting in front of them. Of course, asking organisms that do talk about their motivations is still not a guarantee that you will learn a whole lot about anything. Not one to be easily discouraged, I devised a way to have conversations with a slime mold, using modified Ouija technology (more on that below).
Why try to talk with a slime mold, and not say, a chimpanzee, dolphin, elephant, dog, or parrot? Well, for one thing there has been a lot of interest over the last couple of years in the cognitive abilities of slime molds, and it turns out they are great at solving all kinds of problems: they can design robust metro networks, can find the shortest path in labyrinths, can be used to build biological computers, and happily engage in co-creating improvised music.
These amazing organisms probably would happily engage in conversation with us if only we would open a channel for them, and this is what I did. I built a glass terrarium, filled the floor with a layer of agar, and cast oatmeal letters and punctuation marks on top of the agar. By very slowly crawling from letter to letter they now answer questions. A time-lapse system and Word’s spell checker help me to make sense of the slime mold’s end of the conversation. I soon learned slime molds are positively chatty and slime mold Andi now has a twitter account, a medium weblog, and the slimy equivalent of a sore throat.
II. Biohacking a slime mold, a.k.a. a slime mold biohacking
So, here I was having a chat with slime mold Andi, and I asked it ‘If you could speed up and direct your evolution, what would you become?’. Andi answered ‘Grind toys, noted. Scum testis polka. Knobby, use all, how you claim red bug, moms with axes, very nice blue eon up, skeletal. Invasion. Out’. Since slime molds can be rather dense and poetic, their utterances require a bit of interpretation. Here is what I think Andi tried to tell me:
Andi reminds me that this does not have to be a hypothetical question, (‘grind* toys noted’), and hopes I can make good on the suggestions in its response. It is unimpressed with sexual reproduction and the dancing rituals that precede it (‘Scum testis polka’), maybe because this invites venereal diseases and angry parents (‘how you claim red bug, moms with axes’). However, Andi would love to be able to raise its head and look at the blue sky for a long time (‘very nice blue eon up’). To achieve this, Andi would like to invade a skeleton, so it can move out of the logs and research labs it inhabits and travel the world (‘skeletal. Invasion. Out’).
* Grinders are people that aim to enhance their capabilities by introducing technology into their bodies outside medico-legal channels.
In a follow-up conversation, I told Andi about genetics and the possibilities of genetic modification and asked it to specify a string of DNA it would want as an additional gene. It readily complied, which resulted in a string of 498 instances of the characters A, C, G, and T, representing the DNA building blocks of Adenine, Cytosine, Guanine, and Thymine. I sent the code for this gene to a synthetic biology company who created a pUC57 plasmid carrying the gene. On September 27 2019 I stirred this into a sample of slime mold Andi, in a sterilized, home built, single-person sterile hood, in a temporary kitchen lab. Andi is now the first non-human organism genetically modified to its own specifications.
III. That was a first, what’s next?
To be honest, I forgot to ask Andi what the genetic modification they requested is for. To find out we are now running a series of tests to compare the performance of classic Andi (C-andi) to genetically modified Andi (G-andi) on a number of traits. I will publish the results of these tests as they become available. So far, I have designed tests for speed, area coverage, cognitive ability, personality, and habitat preference. I will also make some skeletal remains available to it, to see if Andi was joking when they suggested they want to invade a skeleton to get around and look at the sky.
Besides helping Andi grind their way towards a new life, we aim to contribute to the discussion of genetic modification in non-human organisms. So far, this discussion has mostly focused on the risks and opportunities genetically modified non-human organisms pose to us. It has steered clear of the consequences of such modifications for the organisms themselves. By co-designing genetic modifications with a non-human organism we want to emphasize the relevance and complexities of agency and consent to this discussion.
