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If you ask three synthetic biologists, "What is synthetic biology?", you are likely to get four, maybe five or more answers.

So what is it?

Simply put, synthetic biology is an engineering approach to biology. The goal is to create and use tools that allow us to design and build functions in cells. It's really that simple, but there's tremendous power in that idea. Why?

First, if you give cells the right mix of food, they will divide and divide and divide. Imagine that you design a cell to make a substance, such as a food ingredient. One tiny cell isn't going to produce much. But if your little food factories divide and fill a fermenter the size of a house, then your cells are going to produce a lot.

Second, cells are like little computers. They sense many factors in their environment, add those factors together, and compute the best response to their situation. Synthetic biologists can use this ability to program smart cells. For example, we can teach immune cells to behave so that if they see a cancer, they not only latch on, but also call their friends and maybe even release a cancer drug that is made within the cell itself. In the future, it's likely that we will design cells with the ability to make many different drugs and, depending on the health status of the person, produce the drug that the person needs in just the right quantity at just the right time.

Who are synthetic biologists?

In addition to "what" is synthetic biology, another important question is "who" is synthetic biology. What kinds of people are in this field, and what are their motivations?

Synthetic biology is a kind of mixture of biology, engineering, computing, and many other fields. There's a combination of scientists (who tend to look for answers to natural phenomena) and engineers (who tend to build things). There are computer experts and microbe experts. And there are people from universities as well as small and large companies. So the people who call themselves "synthetic biologists" tend to come from many different backgrounds and perspectives. Synthetic biology tends to attract people who are curious about other disciplines and naturally open to collaborating with others.

At its best, the synthetic biology community focuses on the social impacts of this technology. That includes having honest conversations about emerging issues in areas like biosecurity and biosafety. It also includes ensuring that we as a community are focused on applying our abilities to the needs of society, whether it's feeding everyone, making sustainable materials and energy sources, or treating disease.

Synthetic biology is an aspirational field, both in terms of technology and social goals. That is the kind of community we aim to foster at SynBioBeta.

Some of our favorite resources about synthetic biology

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What - and who - is synthetic biology? - SynBioBeta

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Simply put, synthetic biology is an engineering approach to biology. The goal is to create and use tools that allow us to design and build new abilities cells. It's really that simple, but there's tremendous power in that idea. Why? What kind of people and companies are in this field, and what are their motivations?

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Our lives have been transformed by the information age. But what's coming next is likely to be more profound, call it the genetic information age. We have mapped the human genome and in just the last few years we have learned to read and write DNA like software. And you're about to see a few breakthroughs-in-waiting that would transform human health. For a preview of this revolution in evolution we met George Church, a world leading geneticist, whose own DNA harbors many eccentricities and a few genes for genius.

We found George Church in here.

Cory Smith: Most of these are frozen George. Little bits of George that we have edited all in different tubes.

Church threw himself into his work, literally. His DNA is in many of the experiments in his lab at Harvard Medical School. The fully assembled George Church is 6'5" and 65. He helped pioneer mapping the human genome and editing DNA. Today, his lab is working to make humans immune to all viruses, eliminate genetic diseases, and reverse the effects of time.

Scott Pelley: One of the things your lab is working on is reversing aging.

George Church: That's right.

Scott Pelley: How is that possible?

George Church: Reversing aging is one of these things that is easy to dismiss to say either we don't need it or is impossible or both.

Scott Pelley: Oh, we need it.

George Church: Okay. We need it. That's good. We can agree on that. Well, aging reversal is something that's been proven about eight different ways in animals where you can get, you know, faster reaction times or, you know, cognitive or repair of damaged tissues.

Scott Pelley: Proven eight different ways. Why isn't this available?

George Church: It is available to mice.

In lucky mice, Church's lab added multiple genes that improved heart and kidney function and levels of blood sugar. Now he's trying it in spaniels.

Scott Pelley: So is this gene editing to achieve age reversal?

George Church: This is adding genes. So, it's not really editing genes. It's, the gene function is going down, and so we're boosting it back up by putting in extra copies of the genes.

Scott Pelley: What's the time horizon on age reversal in humans?

George Church: That's in clinical trials right now in dogs. And so, that veterinary product might be a couple years away and then that takes another ten years to get through the human clinical trials.

The complicated ethics of genetic engineering

Human trials of a personal kind made George Church an unlikely candidate to alter human evolution. Growing up in Florida, Church was dyslexic, with attention deficit, and frequently knocked out by narcolepsy.

Scott Pelley: What was it that made you imagine that you could be a scientist?

George Church: The thing that got me hooked was probably the New York World's Fair in 1964. I thought this is the way we should all be living. When I went back to Florida, I said, "I've been robbed," you know? "Where is it all?" So, I said, "Well, if they're not going to provide it, then I'm gonna provide it for myself."

With work and repetition, he beat his disabilities and developed a genius for crystallography, a daunting technique that renders 3D images of molecules through X-rays and math. But in graduate school at Duke, at the age of 20, his mania for the basic structures of life didn't leave time for the basic structure of life.

Scott Pelley: You were homeless for a time.

George Church: Yeah. Briefly.

Scott Pelley: Six months.

George Church: Six months.

Scott Pelley: And where were you sleeping when you were homeless?

George Church: Well, yeah. I wasn't sleeping that much. I was mostly working. I'm narcoleptic. So, I fall asleep sitting up anyway.

His devotion to crystallography was his undoing at Duke.

George Church: I was extremely excited about the research I was doing. And so, I would put in 100-plus hours a week on research and then pretty much didn't do anything else.

Scott Pelley: Not go to class.

George Church: I wouldn't go to class. Yeah.

Duke kicked him out with this letter wishing him well in a field other than biology. But, it turned out, Harvard needed a crystallographer. George Church has been here nearly 40 years. He employs around 100 scientists, about half-and-half men and women.

Scott Pelley: Who do you hire?

George Church: I hire people that are self-selecting, they see our beacon from a distance away. There are a lot of people that are a little, you know, might be considered a little odd. "Neuroatypicals," some of us are called.

Scott Pelley: "Neuroatypical?"

George Church: Right.

Scott Pelley: Unusual brains?

George Church: Right, yeah.

Parastoo Khoshakhlagh: One thing about George that is very significant is that he sees what you can't even see in yourself.

Parastoo Khoshakhlagh and Alex Ng are among the "neuroatypicals." They're engineering human organ tissue.

Cory Smith: I think he tries to promote no fear of failure. The only fear is not to try at all.

Cory Smith's project sped up DNA editing from altering three genes at a time to 13,000 at a time. Eriona Hysolli went to Siberia with Church to extract DNA from the bones of wooly mammoths. She's editing the genes into elephant DNA to bring the mammoth back from extinction.

Eriona Hysolli: We are laying the foundations, perhaps, of de-extinction projects to come.

Scott Pelley: De-extinction.

Eriona Hysolli: Yes.

Scott Pelley: I'm not sure that's a word in the dictionary yet.

Eriona Hysolli: Well, if it isn't, it should be.

Scott Pelley: You know there are people watching this interview who think that is playing God.

George Church: Well, it's playing engineer. I mean, humans have been playing engineer since the dawn of time.

Scott Pelley: The point is, some people believe that you're mucking about in things that shouldn't be disturbed.

George Church: I completely agree that we need to be very cautious. And the more powerful, or the more rapidly-moving the technology, the more cautious we need to be, the bigger the conversation involving lots of different disciplines, religion, ethics, government, art, and so forth. And to see what it's unintended consequences might be.

Church anticipates consequences with a full time ethicist in the lab and he spends a good deal of time thinking about genetic equity. Believing that genetic technology must be available to all, not just those who can afford it.

We saw one of those technologies in the hands of Alex Ng and Parastoo Khoshakhlagh. They showed us what they call "mini-brains," tiny dots with millions of cells each. They've proven that cells from a patient can be grown into any organ tissue, in a matter of days, so drugs can be tested on that patient's unique genome.

Scott Pelley: You said that you got these cells from George's skin? How does that work?

Alex Ng: We have a way to reprogram essentially, skin cells, back into a stem cell state. And we have technologies where now we can differentiate them into tissue such as brain tissue.

Scott Pelley: So you went from George's skin cells, turned those into stem cells, and turned those into brain cells.

Alex Ng: Exactly. Exactly.

Scott Pelley: Simple as that.

Organs grown from a patient's own cells would eliminate the problem of rejection. Their goal is to prove the concept by growing full sized organs from Church's DNA.

George Church: It's considered more ethical for students to do experiments on their boss than vice versa and it's good to do it on me rather than some stranger because I'm as up to speed as you can be on the on the risks and the benefits. I'm properly consented. And I'm unlikely to change my mind.

Alex Ng: We have a joke in the lab, I mean, at some point, soon probably, we're going to have more of his cells outside of his body than he has himself.

Church's DNA is also used in experiments designed to make humans immune to all viruses.

George Church: We have a strategy by which we can make any cell or any organism resistant to all viruses by changing the genetic code. So if you change that code enough you now get something that is resistant to all viruses including viruses you never characterized before.

Scott Pelley: Because the viruses don't recognize it anymore?

George Church: They expect a certain code provided by the host that they replicate in. the virus would have to change so many parts of its DNA or RNA so that it can't change them all at once. So, it's not only dead. But it can't mutate to a new place where it could survive in a new host.

Yes, he's talking about the cure for the common cold and the end of waiting for organ transplants. It's long been known that pig organs could function in humans. Pig heart valves are routinely transplanted already. But pig viruses have kept surgeons from transplanting whole organs. Church's lab altered pig DNA and knocked out 62 pig viruses.

Scott Pelley: What organs might be transplanted from a pig to a human?

George Church: Heart, lung, kidney, liver, intestines, various parts of the eye, skin. All these things.

Scott Pelley: What's the time horizon on transplanting pig organs into human beings?

George Church: you know, two to five years to get into clinical trials. And then again it could take ten years to get through the clinical trials.

Church is a role model for the next generation. He has co-founded more than 35 startups. Recently, investors put $100 million into the pig organ work. Another Church startup is a dating app that compares DNA and screens out matches that would result in a child with an inherited disease.

George Church: You wouldn't find out who you're not compatible with. You'll just find out who you are compatible with.

Scott Pelley: You're suggesting that if everyone has their genome sequenced and the correct matches are made, that all of these diseases could be eliminated?

George Church: Right. It's 7,000 diseases. It's about 5% of the population. It's about a trillion dollars a year, worldwide.

Church sees one of his own genetic differences as an advantage. Narcolepsy lulls him several times a day. But he wakes, still in the conversation, often, discovering inspiration in his twilight zone.

Scott Pelley: If somebody had sequenced your genome some years ago, you might not have made the grade in some way.

George Church: I mean, that's true. I would hope that society sees the benefit of diversity not just ancestral diversity, but in our abilities. There's no perfect person.

Despite imperfection, Church has co-authored 527 scientific papers and holds more than 50 patents. Proof that great minds do not think alike.

The best science can tell, it was about 4 billion years ago that self-replicating molecules set off the spark of biology. Now, humans hold the tools of evolution, but George Church remains in awe of the original mystery: how chemistry became life.

Scott Pelley: Is the most amazing thing about life, then, that it happened at all?

George Church: It is amazing in our current state of ignorance. We don't even know if it ever happened ever in the rest of the universe. it's awe-inspiring to know that it either happened billions of times, or it never happened. Both of those are mind boggling. It's amazing that you can have such complex structures that make copies of themselves. But it's very hard to do that with machines that we've built. So, we're engineers. But we're rather poor engineers compared to the pseudo engineering that is biological evolution.
Produced by Henry Schuster. Associate producer, Rachael Morehouse. Broadcast associate, Ian Flickinger.

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A Harvard geneticist's goal: to protect humans from viruses, genetic diseases, and aging

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Our lives have been transformed by the information age. But what's coming next is likely to be more profound, call it the genetic information age. We have mapped the human genome and in just the last few years we have learned to read and write DNA like software.

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Article choice to replace other article on designer babies

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Researchers recently reported that they were able to edit human embryos to fix a dangerous mutation. The technology is inching closer to reality, so we need to take a stand, says biochemist Jennifer Doudna.

If CRISPR can help parents conceive a disease-free child when no other options exist and it can do so safely, ought we to use it? It's a question I've asked myself again and again - and one that is particularly timely due to the Nature study published this month that described how scientists at Oregon Health and Science University, working with collaborators in California, China and South Korea, were able to correct human embryos of a common and harmful genetic mutation.

Unsurprisingly, Americans are having a hard time agreeing on an answer: a 2016 Pew Research poll found that 50 percent of adults in the US oppose the idea of reducing the risk of disease using germline editing, compared to 48 percent in favor. (When it comes to making nonessential enhancements to a baby's genome, we seem to be considerably more unified; only 15 percent of the poll's respondents were in favor.)

Religion is one obvious moral compass that people use to confront difficult questions like this, though perspectives can vary widely. When it comes to experimentation with human embryos, some Christian communities are opposed because they regard the embryo as a person from conception, whereas Jewish and Muslim traditions tend to be more accepting because they do not consider embryos created in vitro to be people. And while some religions see any interventions in the germline as a usurpation of God's role in humanity, others welcome human involvement in nature as long as the goals pursued are inherently good.

Humans have been reproducing for millennia aided only by the DNA mutations that arise naturally, and for us to begin directing that process ​seems almost perverse.

Yet another moral guidepost is purely internal: the visceral, knee-jerk reaction to the idea of using CRISPR to permanently edit a future child's genes. For many people, the very idea feels unnatural and wrong, and I was one of those people when I first started thinking about the issue. Humans have been reproducing for millennia aided only by the DNA mutations that arise naturally, and for us to begin directing the process ​- ​similar to the way that plant biologists might genetically modify corn ​- ​seems almost perverse at first glance. As National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins put it, "Evolution has been working toward optimizing the human genome for 3.85 billion years. Do we really think that some small group of human genome tinkerers could do better without all sorts of unintended consequences?"

While I share the general feeling of unease at the idea of humans taking control of their evolution, I wouldn't go so far as to say that nature has fine-tuned our genetic composition. Obviously, evolution didn't optimize the human genome for the present era, when modern foods, computers and high-speed transportation have completely transformed the way we live. And if we look over our shoulders at the course of evolution that has led to this moment, we'll see it's littered with organisms that didn't benefit from the mutational chaos that underpins evolution. Nature is less an engineer than a tinkerer - and a fairly sloppy one at that. Its carelessness can seem like outright cruelty for those people who have inherited genetic mutations that turned out to be suboptimal.

Similarly, the argument that germline editing is unnatural doesn't carry much weight with me anymore. When it comes to human affairs and especially the world of medicine, the line between natural and unnatural blurs to the point of disappearing. We wouldn't call a coral reef unnatural, but we might use the term for a megalopolis like Tokyo. Is this because one is crafted by humans and the other isn't? In my mind, the distinction between natural and unnatural is a false dichotomy, and if it prevents us from alleviating human suffering, it's also a dangerous one.

One woman told me: "If I could use germline editing to remove this mutation from the human population so that no one else suffers as my sister did, I would do it in a heartbeat!"

I've had numerous opportunities to meet with people who have experienced genetic disease themselves or in their families, and their stories are deeply moving. One woman pulled me aside at a conference to share her personal story after a session in which I had discussed CRISPR technology. Her sister had suffered from a rare but devastating genetic disease that affected her physical and mental health and caused tremendous hardship for the entire family. "If I could use germline editing to remove this mutation from the human population so that no one else suffers as my sister did, I would do it in a heartbeat!" she said, tears welling up in her eyes.

On another occasion, a man came to visit me and explained that his father and grandfather had died of Huntington's disease and that three of his sisters had tested positive for the trait. He wanted to do anything he could to advance research toward a cure or, better yet, prevention of this terrible disease. I did not have the heart to ask him if he carried the mutated gene. If he did, he could expect to be robbed of his powers of movement and speech before much longer and to meet an early death ​- ​a terrible sentence for anyone to see placed on their loved ones, let alone be subjected to themselves. Stories like these underscore the terrible human costs of genetic diseases. If we have tools that can one day help doctors safely and effectively correct mutations, whether prior to or just after conception, it seems to me that we'd be justified in using them.

It's not a stretch to think that wealthy families would benefit from germline editing more than others, at least in the beginning.

Setting aside the inherent rightness or wrongness of editing the germline, another ethical issue continues to nag at me: how would CRISPR affect society? Just as it's hard to know where we'd draw the line when it comes to editing embryos, it's difficult to see how we'd do it equitably ​- ​that is, in a way that improves human health across the board, not just in certain groups. It's not a stretch to think that wealthy families would benefit from germline editing more than others, at least in the beginning. Recent gene therapies have hit the market with a price tag of around a million dollars, and it's likely the first gene-editing therapies will be no different.

Of course, new technologies shouldn't be rejected simply because they're expensive. You need look no further than personal computers, cell phones, and direct-to-consumer DNA sequencing to see how costs of new technologies generally diminish over time as improvements are made, leading to a resulting increase in access. Furthermore, there's also the chance that germline editing, like other medical treatments, could one day be subsidized by health insurance.

This might certainly seem like only a remote possibility in the US, since existing reproductive procedures such as IVF and PGD, which routinely cost tens of thousands of dollars, are seldom covered by insurance. But in France, Israel, Sweden and other countries whose national health plans cover assisted reproduction, it's possible that simple economics will incentivize governments to make gene editing available to patients who need it. After all, providing lifelong treatment to a single person with a genetic disease could be much more expensive than intervention in the embryo using gene editing.

But even in countries with comprehensive health-care systems where people from all classes could benefit from germline editing, there's a risk that it might give rise to genetic inequalities, creating a new "gene gap" that would only widen over time. Since the wealthy would be able to afford the procedure more often and since any beneficial genetic modifications made to an embryo would be transmitted to that person's offspring, linkages between class and genetics would ineluctably grow from one generation to the next, no matter how small the disparity in access might be.

Consider the effect this could have on the socioeconomic fabric of society - if you think our world is unequal now, just imagine it stratified along socioeconomic and genetic lines. Envision a future where people with more money live healthier and longer lives, thanks to their privileged sets of genes. It's the stuff of science fiction, but if germline editing becomes routine, this fiction could become reality.

Using gene editing to "fix" things like deafness or obesity could create a less inclusive society, one that pressures everyone to be the same.  ​

Germline editing may also create a different kind of injustice. As disability-rights advocates have pointed out, using gene editing to "fix" things like deafness or obesity could create a less inclusive society, one that pressures everyone to be the same ​- ​and perhaps even encourages more discrimination against differently abled people ​- ​instead of celebrating our natural differences. After all, the human genome is not mere software with bugs that we should categorically eliminate. Part of what makes our species unique and our society so strong is its diversity. While some disease-causing gene mutations produce defective or abnormal proteins on a biochemical level, the individuals who live with the disease are certainly not defective or abnormal people, and they might live happy lives and not feel any need for gene repair.

This fear ​- ​that gene editing will exacerbate existing prejudices against people who fall outside a narrow range of genetic norms ​- ​underlies the association that numerous writers have made between germline editing and eugenics. That concept is best known today for its popularity in Nazi Germany, where a quest to perfect the human race reached its terrible zenith through the forced sterilization of hundreds of thousands of people and the widespread extermination of millions of Jews, homosexuals, the mentally ill and others deemed unworthy of life.

Eugenics as practiced by the Nazis was utterly reprehensible, but I believe the odds are minuscule we'll see anything similar happen with gene editing. Governments are simply not going to begin forcing parents to edit their children's genes. (In fact, the procedure is still illegal in many places.) Unless we're talking about coercive regimes controlling their citizens' procreative liberty, germline editing would remain a private decision for individual parents to make for their own children, not a decision for bureaucrats to make for the population at large.

My views on the ethics of germline editing continue to evolve, ​but as they do, I find myself returning time and again to the issue of choice. Above all else, we must respect people's freedom to choose their own genetic destiny and strive for healthier, happier lives. If people are given this freedom, they will do with it what they personally think is right, ​whatever that may be. As Charles Sabine, a victim of Huntington's disease, put it, "Anyone who has to actually face the reality of one of these diseases is not going to have a remote compunction about thinking that there is any moral issue at all." Who are we to tell him otherwise?
Excerpted from the new book A Crack in Creation: Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution by Jennifer A. Doudna and Samuel H. Sternberg. Copyright © 2017 Jennifer A. Doudna and Samuel H. Sternberg. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. All rights reserved.

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Opinion: Should we use gene editing to produce disease-free babies? A scientist who helped discover CRISPR weighs in.

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Researchers recently reported that they were able to edit human embryos to fix a dangerous mutation. The technology is inching closer to reality, so we need to take a stand, says biochemist Jennife...

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Jennifer Doudna: How CRISPR lets us edit our DNA

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Geneticist Jennifer Doudna co-invented a groundbreaking new technology for editing genes, called CRISPR-Cas9. The tool allows scientists to make precise edits to DNA strands, which could lead to treatments for genetic diseases ... but could also be used to create so-called "designer babies."

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The Embryo Project Encyclopedia

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Ethics of Designer Babies | Embryo Project Encyclopedia

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A designer baby is a baby genetically engineered in vitro for specially selected traits, which can vary from lowered disease-risk to gender selection. Before the advent of genetic engineering and in vitro fertilization (IVF), designer babies were primarily a science fiction concept. However, the rapid advancement of technology before and after the turn of the twenty-first century makes designer babies an increasingly real possibility. As a result, designer babies have become an important topic in bioethical debates, and in 2004 the term “designer baby” even became an official entry in the Oxford English Dictionary. Designer babies represent an area within embryology that has not yet become a practical reality, but nonetheless draws out ethical concerns about whether or not it will become necessary to implement limitations regarding designer babies in the future.

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news article Synthetic DNA

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By Rebecca Morelle
Science reporter, BBC News

The race to create life version 2.0 is under way.
And rumours abound that closest to the finish line in constructing a lifeform in the laboratory is US genome-entrepreneur Craig Venter's research team.

The J Craig Venter Institute scientists are aiming to craft a "minimal genome"- the smallest group of genes an organism needs to survive and function - and insert it into an empty cell.

This stripped-down genome has been established with the help of a simple bacterium, Mycoplasma genitalium, by knocking out its genes, one by one, until only the genetic material vital for survival was found.

The plan is to re-synthesise these DNA sequences from simple chemicals, stitch them together and create an artificial organism. Some believe the team may be on the cusp of doing just that.

Dr Venter's work on synthetic life is described by some as "top-down", meaning that he is taking an existing organism and changing it to create something new.

Drew Endy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, US, says: "Venter is not creating life from scratch.

"He is constructing a genome, which is more or less a slightly modified copy of an existing genome, then putting it back into an existing cell."

Dr Endy, who is working on standard building blocks, called BioBrick parts, which can be assembled to build larger biological systems, says he sees Dr Venter's work as a "genome construction project", albeit "an incredibly significant" one.

But building life from scratch, from the "bottom-up", is a challenge that some synthetic biologists have decided to take on.

If you can build the biological parts, they argue, then creating something that meets the criteria for life - has a metabolism, replicates and evolves - is surely the next step.
Cell 'blueprint'
Anthony Forster from Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Tennessee, US, says: "There has been a fair amount of talk about how you might synthesise self replication and life in a test tube, but nobody really had a detailed plan for it."

Dr Forster, along with George Church from Harvard Medical School, US, has created a "blueprint" for a synthetic cell, defining the 151 genes that they believe are needed to create life.

The team is now in the process of using the blueprint to begin to piece together its prototype cell.

But what are the reasons for creating synthetic life?

Dr Venter hopes to modify genes in his new organism so that it can mop up greenhouse gases. Other tasks such organisms might be able to do include cleaning up oil spills or producing plastics.

Giovanni Murtas, from the Enrico Fermi Centre, University of Rome Three, Italy, plans to build a new lifeform to look at the more fundamental question of the origins of life.

"We are creating these semi-synthetic minimal cells that recall the early living cells," he says.

So far, his team has successfully built a cell system that can synthesise proteins, which is important for demonstrating that a basic metabolism can be created. Replication is the next step, he explains.

"If you want to understand more about how life was set up, then you want to recreate the principal steps for life; and you can obviously learn something new about life from using this approach," Dr Murtas tells BBC News.

Ron Weiss from Princeton University, US, who is focussing on programming biological organisms, believes the technology could also have biomedical applications.

"One thing people are trying to do is to use cells as factories to make drugs or fabricate structures," he says.
New take on life
The top-down and bottom-up teams have something in common: they are mimicking what nature does already. Some scientists, though, have gone back to the drawing broad in their quest to produce synthetic life.

Steen Rasmussen from Los Alamos National Laboratory, US, is one of them.

"We are the radical kids on the block. We have abandoned so much of what traditional biology is doing. Many biologists view us as heretics," he says.

Rather than turning to biological cell design as his starting point, Dr Rasmussen is looking to see if there might be simpler structures that he can use as the basis of his synthetic organism.

He is creating a cell in which the essential parts, such as genes and metabolic chemicals, are stuck to the surface of it rather than held inside like a traditional cell.

He says: "This means you can exchange resources and waste directly with the environment and that simplifies things enormously."

Synthetic biologists think that although life created by a top-down approach may be imminent, synthetic life built from the bottom up is a few more years away - at least five to 10.

However, George Attard from Southampton University, UK, adds a word or two of caution.

"The biggest challenge is not necessarily creating life, but knowing that you have created life - doing the experiment that unambiguously tells you that you've got it," he says.

"That's because you are going to be looking at a 'soup' that contains several hundred, possibly several thousand, chemical species. How on Earth can you tell that what you have isn't just a chemical waste bottle but something that is exhibiting the signs of life?"

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By Rebecca Morelle Science reporter, BBC News The race to create life version 2.0 is under way. And rumours abound that closest to the finish line in constructing a lifeform in the laboratory is US genome-entrepreneur Craig Venter's research team.

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Over the last century, the field of genetics and biotechnology has greatly developed because of the better understanding of the gene. Because of the improvement of technology, scientists have already gone up until the manipulation of the genome (complete set of genes) of organisms. This process is called genetic engineering. In this article, we will explore 13 important genetic engineering pros and cons.

What Is Actually Genetic Engineering?

The "sharing" of genetic material among living organisms is known to be a natural event. This phenomenon is known to be very evident among bacteria, hence they are called "nature's own genetic engineer". Such phenomenon is the inspiration of scientists in this endeavor.

In literature, there are in fact many synonyms of the term "genetic engineering": genetic modification, genome manipulation, genetic enhancement, and many more. However, this term shall not be confused with because genetic engineering involves the production of new set of genes while the latter only involves the production of the same copies of genes in the organism.

Genetic engineering is the process of manipulating an organism's genome using biotechnology and the products of it are either referred to as "genetically modified" or "transgenic" organisms. Check out the disadvantages of genetically modified foods here.

How Does Genetic Engineering Work?

Basically, genetic engineering is done by inserting a "gene of interest" from sources like bacteria, , , and into the "target" organism. As a result, the organism with the inserted "gene of interest" is now able to carry out the new trait or characteristic.

This technology grants us the ability to overcome barriers, exchange genes among organisms, and produce new organisms with "favorable traits".

For a more detailed explanation of the process, check out this video below:

Now we will dive into the pros and cons of Genetic Engineering now.

Pros of Genetic Engineering / Advantages of Genetic Engineering

Supporters of genetic engineering believe that genetic engineering is indeed safe and is still comparable to the traditional process of breeding in plants and animals. Advocates of genetic engineering support the technology primarily because of the following reasons:

1. Production of nutrient-rich foods

A variety of food crops and products have already been modified in order to provide better nutrition for consumers. For instance, did you know that you can already have your daily requirement of vitamin A by eating rice alone? By inserting a gene that encodes for vitamin A to the gene of regular rice, scientists were able to create a new breed of rice plants called " Golden Rice ". Such discovery is very helpful to the diet of populations that consume rice.

2. Increased resistance of plants to rotting and pests

3. Increased Meat Production

4. Production of novel drugs and vaccines

5. Development of new and favorable characters

Through the course of time, genetic engineering is no longer limited to plants and animals alone. Surprisingly, a study published in the journal Nature showed that genetic engineering in humans is already being performed in a process called gene doping. Unlike the known process of "doping", which involves the use of performance enhancing drugs like growth hormones and steroids, gene doping involves the non-therapeutic use of genes and cells to improve athletic performance.

6. Creation of humans with desirable features

In addition to the above mentioned, did you know that using genetic engineering, you can already choose the type of baby you want to have? The term "designer baby" refers to a baby whose genetic makeup has been chosen in order to ensure that a certain gene will be present or to remove a certain unwanted trait. Although possible, this genetic technology has not yet been started because of continuing ethical debates.

Cons of Genetic Engineering / Disadvantages of Genetic Engineering

On the other hand, there are several types of potential health effects that could arise from the insertion of a novel gene into an organism. Critics disagree with the methods of genetic engineering because of:

1. The fear for unintended selection and any unwanted transfer of genes

2. Health issues like allergic reactions

3. Development of antibiotic resistance of disease causing organisms

Another damaging effect of producing GM organisms is a condition called " antibiotic resistance ". In this phenomenon, the supposedly target organisms of antibiotics change in a way that they eventually become resistant to the drug. As a result, they will continue to survive, causing greater harm.

4. Loss of biodiversity

According to a study published in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University, one major problem regarding the rise of GM organisms is that they can cause a reduction in the biodiversity (the difference in the traits of organisms) of plants and animals in the environment. This means that the DNA in the environment will be more similar between individuals. So what? Loss biodiversity in the environment means lower chances of adaptation and survival of organisms to changing environment.

5. The fear for the rise of "invasive species"

6. Economic consequences

Because of the technology used to create genetically modified crops and animals, private companies that produce them do not share their products at a reasonable cost with the public.

7. Social and Ethical Concerns

In addition, they believe that the process is somewhat disrupting the natural way and complexity of life. In addition to this, critics fear the misuse and abuse of biotechnology.

Genetic Engineering - Good, Bad & Ugly - An Infographics

What's Next?

Indeed, genetic engineering will always have two opposite sides. While the possibilities of what science can create are endless, and the harmful effects also are. At present, it is important to know that the real risks and benefits of genetic engineering lie in how science is interpreted and used.

But there's really no doubt that with the rapid advancements in technology, the creation of GM organisms are also increasing.

What do you think? Are GM organisms slowly becoming the future?

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13 Important Genetic Engineering Pros And Cons | Bio Explorer

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Over the last century, the field of genetics and biotechnology has greatly developed because of the better understanding of the gene. Because of the improvement of technology, scientists have already gone up until the manipulation of the genome (complete set of genes) of organisms. This process is called genetic engineering.

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Paul Knoepfler

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Transcript of "The ethical dilemma of designer babies"

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TED Talk Subtitles and Transcript: Creating genetically modified people is no longer a science fiction fantasy; it's a likely future scenario. Biologist Paul Knoepfler estimates that within fifteen years, scientists could use the gene editing technology CRISPR to make certain "upgrades" to human embryos -- from altering physical appearances to eliminating the risk of auto-immune diseases.

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With Craig Ventor

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Craig Venter: Watch me unveil "synthetic life"

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Craig Venter and team make a historic announcement: they've created the first fully functioning, reproducing cell controlled by synthetic DNA. He explains how they did it and why the achievement marks the beginning of a new era for science.

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What is genomics? How will it affect our lives? In this intriguing primer on the genomics revolution, entrepreneur Barry Schuler says we can at least expect healthier, tastier food. He suggests we start with the pinot noir grape, to build better wines.