Prompted by the rebooting of a cell using a synthetically generated genome, US president Barack Obama has asked for a study of its implications from the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues.
Obama wants the report in six months and to “study the implications of this scientific milestone, as well as other advances that may lie ahead in this field of research”.
I wonder if they are going to point that this kind of thing has been going on for a while and that, although a total reboot is now possible, it’s unlikely to be the way that synthetic biology is done for a good while.
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