Longest synthetic DNA molecule

In 2008, scientists at the J Craig Venter Institute, USA, created an entire molecule of a bacteria genome with only chemicals available in their laboratory. Using a variety of short pieces of synthetic genetic material that are available commercially, the scientists pieced together the genes for the bacteria Mycoplasma genitalium. This makes 582,970 base pair M. genitalium bacterial genome the largest chemically defined structure synthesized in the lab, and over 20 times longer than the previous attempts at synthetic DNA molecules.