Over one million total bases were inserted into M. capricolum. The final result was a bacterial cell that originated from M. capricolum, but behaved like and expressed the proteins of M. mycoides. This synthetic M. mycoides bacterium was also able to self-replicate, a fundamental quality of life. 71 The demonstration that completely synthetic genomes can be used to start synthetic life promises other exciting discoveries and technologies. For example, photosynthetic algae could be transplanted with genomes that would enable these organisms to produce biofuel. In fact, the ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company has already worked out an agreement with Synthetic Genomics, the company that helped fund the JCVI research team, to start just such a project. Select one: a. True b. Not Given c. False