Scientists are working to create new forms of life from DNA up. "They've forged chemicals into synthetic DNA, the DNA into genes, genes into genomes, and built the molecular machinery of completely new organisms in the lab."
Ever since humans learned that the combination of sperm and egg gives rise to life, we have been manipulating the human genome. Using selective breeding, protecting the biologically damaged and allowing them to pass on their defects, shifting the balance of male and female births—all are forms of manipulation. What is new is the ability to do this at the most basic biological levels.
For some people, this is an inherently bad idea, even an offensive one. But, given the history of human forays into the unknown, the attempts to create new life forms will continue, regardless of public opinion. The only relevant questions are: how to ensure that the work takes place within ethical guidelines, and how to think about and anticipate the long-term effects on society and individuals.
If the imaginings of science fiction writers come to pass, it will be through the efforts of physicists and chemists, and computer scientists and engineers, in the new field of Synthetic Biology, as much as through the work of traditional biologists. "...the guiding principle of the field is a conceptualization of living cells as complex computing machines that have the capacity to replicate themselves."
Since the first Synthetic Biology conference in 2004, scientists "have designed and fabricated thousands of programmable biodevices—bits of genetic machinery that can be brought together to carry out more-sophisticated tasks." Despite media hysteria, much of the work is oriented toward the production of non-human products that can perform tasks like creating a more effective anti-malarial drug. Another goal is "microbes that would circulate through the human bloodstream, seeking out cancerous tumors anywhere in the body."
Such work doesn't bear much resemblance to the cloning of humans and other mammals, or the creation of new forms of humanity, possibly by combining human and animal genomes. Still, they are all part of a new way of thinking about life and its possibilities. ""Life is not magic," says Princeton's Ron Weiss, an electrical engineer who now concentrates on genetic programming of cells."
"...when the first discrete, self-maintaining, self-replicating, stable organic creature—Life 2.0—is created from scratch in the lab," it will be the first step toward a new kind of human future. Whether we will be defying Nature or becoming an equal partner is still unknown.
