So in my story, Jen Air: The Little Queen,
(available now through Kindle), I mention refer to ELFs, or Engineered
Life Forms. Writing a whole genome on a computer and inserting it into a
cell to grow. But this is just science fiction.
But of
course, in real life people are attempting to create artificial life in a
lab, as a way to explore, for example, the origins of other life on
earth and do all sorts of other things. This is called Synthetic Biology.
It actually covers a range of disciplines with a number of different
goals. And is defined by the site syntheticbiology.org thus:
Synthetic Biology is
A) the design and construction of new biological parts, devices, and systems, and
B) the re-design of existing, natural biological systems for useful purposes.
Some examples include Mycoplasma laboratorium, or Synthia.
Obviously
no one is really anywhere close to creating faeries, zombie viruses,
dragons, or any other monsters, as far as I know, and hopefully the real
scientists will be a little more responsible about these things than
the fictional ones. But one day… one day I will have a barbecue I can
take for walks and then fly me home.
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