Making your own DNA, and thereby, creating new and perhaps unseen life forms, is now within reach of anyone with this interest.
Technology is developing fast, and my resent post on how virus is sequenced, and thereby converted into a written code which can be interchanged via email among scientists, and be converted back into a living virus, has now been surpassed, and building up own DNA code is now within reach of anyone who has this interest... and its freeware...
The GCC team, an Israeli stat-up, has made a "compiler" for DNA. The term compilers is normally used for software which converts written computer program lines into a program which can be executed by a computer, but this Genome Compiler can help you build DNA codes which in term can be converted into a living organism.
From an available library of DNA code within the compiler itself, or with a DNA code which you can extract from a cell or bacteria that you chose to sequence, you can start building your own new life form. One example of this is the Glowing Plant project, which aims to capture the DNA that makes some sea water bacterial glow and implement the genetic code into plants, and thereby make them glow in the dark. The project did not take long to get funded via Kickstarter.So what do you do with your newly developed DNA string? You could send it to Cambrian Gemonics, which can print your DNA string with a new laser printing technology and sent it to you.
So far, this can be done for relatively simple life forms, and not on human beings, my guess is that before we have been able to discuss and decide on the ethics for using this on humans, it is already reality. In a future post we can discuss the beneficial and security aspects of it.
