Synthetic biologists say their technology could tackle climate change and feed the hungry, but its dangers are terrifying

Forget genetic engineering. The new idea is synthetic biology, an effort to rewire the genetic circuitry of living organisms. (Subscription Required)

George Church, director of Harvard's Center for Medical Genetics and a synthetic biology policy wonk, feels that synthetic biologists ought to be under government surveillance -- and if they don't like it, they should pick another field.

Synthetic biology -- the emerging science of creating genomes, cellular components and even whole cellular organisms from scratch -- confronts regulators with some tricky problems.

A genome firm says it changed one bacterium species into another by transferring DNA 'software.'