( CNN ) -- Look miles into the future and imagine a day , when geneticists can design a flawless set of human genes in a laboratory . That future vision may never arrive , but it has taken a step closer . Scientists have built a designer chromosome and inserted it into a cell , geneticist Jef Boeke from New York University announced this week . The chromosome was a heavily altered version , a departure from its natural counterpart . A team of scientists from around the world made 500 changes to its genetic base . `` When you change the genome , you 're gambling , '' said Boeke , who led the project . `` One wrong change can kill the cell . '' But the cell survived and made use of its new chromosome . It also reproduced , and subsequent cells carried the new chromosome forward . Actually , make this breakthrough a second step closer to that way-out-there future . Researchers were already able to duplicate a chromosome on a computer four years ago , build it in the lab , insert it into a cell and watch it work . It was a huge advancement that created the first synthetic bacteria cell , scientists said then . But , now , there 's been a leap forward , Boeke said . `` Our research moves the needle in synthetic biology from theory to reality , '' he said . It makes scientists more able to alter the design of living things . Meet yeast -- your cousin . The new chromosome and the cell Boeke 's scientist built it for are much more complex and are closer to those of a human being . The kind of cell Boeke used ? Brewer 's yeast . Yeast cells , human cells , plant and animal cells have in common that they are `` eukaryotes '' -- cells with a nucleus wrapped in membrane . Our chromosomes , which are located in those nuclei , are made of enormously long strings of DNA . They are wound up like twists of yarn that take on that familiar `` X '' shape many associate with the genes they contain . And they are called eukaryotic chromosomes . Boeke 's breakthrough represents the first report that a whole eukaryotic chromosome was constructed from scratch , NYU said . Boeke and his team call their new designer chromosome `` synIII . '' Mammoth knitting task . It took seven years and the help of 60 students to build synIII with the help of computer modeling . Each student put together about 1,000 genetic molecule pairs called `` base pairs '' to make strings of DNA . They were joined together to make a genetic strand 273,871 base pairs long . That 's actually shorter than the yeast 's natural chromosome , which contained 316,667 base pairs . And that 's where the design and manipulation come in . Broeke and his team took out 47,841 base pairs that were repeats of other pairs -- along with some `` junk '' DNA . The new designer chromosome is a cleaned up , streamlined version of the original . Shuffling the genetic deck . Yeast has about 6,000 genes and shares about a third of them with humans , although yeast is a much simpler beast . That makes it easier to study . In fact , its genetics are probably better known than those of any other living thing , NYU said . Although Boeke studies human genetics , too , he is not planning to design a set of synthetic human chromosomes . But he would like to build all 16 required for an entire yeast cell . And he has made some progress already . Students are figuring out how to make DNA strands 10 times as long as the ones they made the first time around . It should speed up production of subsequent chromosomes . Boeke also wants to improve upon the yeast cells in the process , now that his team can shuffle its genes around like cards in a deck . `` It will allow us to ask , can we make a deck of cards with a better hand for making yeast survive under any of a multitude of conditions , such as tolerating higher alcohol levels . '' That might make for stronger glass of beer , but it could also have other uses : The new cells could possibly be programmed to `` brew '' medicines , vaccines and fuels .
Scientists built a new chromosome and inserted it into a yeast cell . The yeast survived , made use of its new DNA and evolved . It took seven years and the help of 60 students to build ` ` synIII '' The breakthrough made scientists more able to study living organisms .