What was the name of the first synthetic bacterial cell announced in 2010?

The first synthetic bacterial cell announced in 2010 was Mycoplasma mycoides JCVI-syn1.0.

Researchers at the J. Craig Venter Institute chemically synthesized a 1.08-million-base-pair genome based on Mycoplasma mycoides. They transplanted that genome into a related recipient cell, Mycoplasma capricolum, whose original DNA had been removed. The resulting cell was controlled by the synthetic chromosome and could grow and reproduce.

The achievement, reported in Science on May 20, 2010, was a landmark for synthetic biology. It did not mean that every part of the cell was built from scratch: the membrane and cellular machinery came from the recipient cell, while the controlling genome was chemically synthesized. That distinction is why the work is often described as the first cell controlled by a synthetic genome.

A common mix-up is JCVI-syn3.0, created in 2016. Syn3.0 was a later, much smaller “minimal” synthetic cell with 473 genes. Mycoplasma genitalium was an important earlier target for genome synthesis, but it was not the name of the 2010 cell.