'Synthetic biology' holds promise, but vigilance needed - USATODAY.com

'Synthetic biology' holds promise, but vigilance needed - USATODAY.com: "Major players in the field such as human genome pioneer Craig Venter, who headed the team behind the May study, have suggested that man-made microbes might someday produce synthetic gasoline. Others, such as Jay Keasling of the University of California, Berkeley, have led efforts to create microbes that make malaria drugs.

On the other hand, a report last year from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars suggested a 'synthetically engineered smallpox virus' as a potential threat raised by synthetic biology. (Smallpox has been eradicated in nature.)

But the ability to create life in the lab, much less bioterror bugs, 'still remains remote,' the president's bioethics commission report says.

'Synthetic biology is in its infancy,' says University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutmann, head of the commission. 'The risks are similar to any new technology, and those risks are fairly far off in the future, not tomorrow or the next year.'"