Several teams of scientists have been working away at creating new life forms from artificial DNA. In Maryland, for example, one group has stitched together a chromosome and expects to transplant it into a cell next year, where it can direct the cell's activity. The swift advance toward creating new life forms in the lab has raised a host of questions around the pioneering companies likely to control the patents on the process as well as determining exactly what the possibilities are in a world where a scientist will be able to write a genetic program on their computer and then convert that into DNA. This is a far cry from the kind of minor genetic alterations that have become common in biotechnology. In this world, a genetic 'platform' can be used to create custom-designed DNA to create a host of new products.

- check out the report [1] from the Washington Post

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