SOME ideas are so audacious they might just work. So when genome guru Craig Venter unveiled a plan last week to create a new life form in the lab, it sparked a blaze of publicity and excitement.
Venter, of course, is the scientist whose American company Celera famously set out to sequence the human genome – mostly Venter’s own genome, as it turned out. Never known for modesty, he has set new heights of ambition with this latest project.
Its aim is no less than to build a new organism from scratch. Out of a selection of essential bits and pieces…
