ABSTRACT
The basic operating system of life on earth is the carbon-based DNA molecule, replicating life with amazing precision. In the course of humanity’s curiosity in it we have flown very close to the sun, first, in our unraveling of the structure of DNA and then, learning to hack it. Laws and regulation and ethics, if we even know what an ethic should be, are the societal constructs that will keep us from the same fate as Icarus. If that is not enough of a threat, accidentally or maliciously, the misuse of this incredible technology looms over the laboratory bench, the hospital, the pharmaceutical lab, the military lab and the family basement. The new age of biocrime is upon us.
