Synthetic biology has hit the headlines yet again. The J. Craig Venter Institute's recent dramatic announcement led to a replay of President Clinton's urgent request of his bioethics commission to produce a quick report on cloning back in 1997. The new Presidential Commission on Bioethical Issues duly spent its first meeting, and no doubt will spend others, fulfilling President Obama's request for a report within 6 months.

The application of engineering principles to organic life is both new and not-so-new. At the Bioethics Commission meeting, one expert claimed that the only fresh ethical issue raised by the Venter article was its use of the word "create" in its title, since he had adapted, not created. But the stream of bioscience heavyweights who are engaging in federally-supported research in this field underscore its significance for the future. The fact that they are some of the loudest voices calling for attention to its potential downside gives us perspective. "It's scary as hell," Stanford's Drew Endy was quoted as saying in the Sept. 2009 New Yorker. "It's the coolest platform science has ever produced, but the questions it raises are the hardest to answer."
 

So what's the agenda? C-PET's Project on Biotechnology is convening an initial Roundtable to focus our thinking. This will be the first of three; subsequent Roundtables will focus on ethics implications (reviewing the work of the President's bioethics commission), and on security implications.