Synthetic life

The J. Craig Venter Institute is developing methods to synthesize whole genomes from scratch, using machines that can string together the chemical bases that make up the genetic code: A,T,C, and G. But genomes don't do anything without a cell, and cells aren't anything without a genetic code, leaving us with the original chicken/egg problem.

Once a genome is synthesized, it needs to be transplanted into a living bacterial cell whose genome has been removed. The ability to transplant the natural genome from one species of bacteria into the cell body of another was demonstrated in 2007, with the host cell literally turning into the donor cell as it replicated the donor genome and divided.