On synthetic biology.

摘要

On Dec 16, the 13-member US Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues published a 188-page document entitled New Directions: The Ethics of Synthetic Biology and Emerging Technologies. President Barack Obama asked the Commission last May to assess the status of synthetic biology on the same day that the J Craig Venter Institute announced the creation of the first synthetic living cell.The Commission rightly concludes that a new life form was not created by Venter's team, which inserted a synthetic (man-made) genome of a naturally existing bacterium into a related bacterial cell. The process, the group stated, only represents an alteration of an already existing life form.