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ing or exceeding Moore’s Law,” Lu says. What is more, the ability to program genes will likely change things in profound ways. It could knock out afflictions such as Malaria, cancer, and Huntington’s disease, but also offer a way to steer clear of controversial genetically modified organisms (GMOs)

AS SCIENTISTS LOOK to un- ravel the secrets of life and address a diverse ar- ray of challenges involv- ing medicine, agriculture, and more, they increasingly are tossing aside their test tubes and microscopes and diving directly into the genome.

Over the last decade, synthetic biology has emerged as an intriguing, if not remarkable, tool that could fundamentally change the world. The nascent concept, based on creating new sequences of DNA from scratch and rearranging existing ones, already is being used to mimic biological systems, create synthetic biological systems, and actually program biological systems.

It is no small matter. “In the latter
half of the 20th century, scientists real-
ized that DNA was the software of liv-
ing systems and it’s possible to trans-
fer code from one organism to another
in order to program cells with new and
different functions,” explains Timothy
Lu, an associate professor in the De-
partment of Electrical and Computer
Science at the Massachusetts Insti-
tute of Technology (MIT). However,
since the turn of the century, he says,
“Researchers have incorporated more
complex elements of computing and
memory. By assembling genes in a spe-
cific way and creating toggles and cir-
cuits, it’s possible to produce desired
behaviors, and program specific func-
tions into cells.”
Make no mistake, DNA synthesis
and sequencing are advancing at a rap-
id rate. “These technologies are match-