Reverse-Engineering Life

Scientists have been able to reverse-engineer the poliovirus by assembling oligonucleotides of plus and minus strand polarity. See the report @ http://info.med.yale.edu/therarad/summers/cello.pdf

And commentaries @ http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/dec102003/1509.pdf, @ http://www7.nationalacademies.org/dsc/Wimmer_Presentation_Sci_Openness.pdf , and
@ http://www.thehastingscenter.org/pdf/publications/in_brief_nov_dec_2003.pdf

Clearly, the field of synthetic biology is opening vast new vistas of scientific and terminological development that may be used for good or for ill (given the fallen nature of man, I should think the latter is the more likely outcome.)