Some scientist think that sending living organisms to other galaxies may not be viable.
They think it is more realistic, to print them on-site using digital representation of their genome.
Scientists have developed a device which accepts digital representation of DNA, over the internet,
and reconstructs them using the building blocks of life: .
Adenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine.
The device is like a printer.
It has bottles of chemicals.
It packages complex biology that each of our tiny cells do remarkably well, in a much smaller scale.
The DBC or the Digital to Biological converter can print DNA, RNA, Viruses, Vaccines, Bacteriophages, etc,.
It demonstrated that it can print a synthetic bacteria, with about 450 genes.
Right now, the process is wasteful and expensive.
It is also not fully error free.
Scientists are working to overcome these problems.
In future it is possible that we can receive insulin or a vaccine by email,
and DBC will print it.
Similarly, many protein based drugs can be printed from remotely received instructions.
If a viral outbreak hits the globe, the vaccine could be sent around the world,
as a digital file, and printed on-site.
It could potentially prevent a pandemic.
Synthesising DNA is prone to introducing unwanted mutations.
Though it has worked pretty well for printing smaller organisms,
the danger of mutations increase as we try to print more complex organisms.
It takes only one DNA base character to be incorrect, for a protein not to work,
or for a cell to be dysfunctional.
The DBC is a very early prototype.
A lot of research and work is to be done to make it liable and functional.