ABSTRACT
Outfitted with supercomputers and new research strategies, the sciences of life—genetics first among them—are generating voluminous and increasingly complex catalogues of data concerning virtually all life processes. With the mapping of the human genome, few doubt that this knowledge brings with it new capacities to deliberately reform those processes. Indeed, pursuit of genetic knowledge is often predicated on the possibility that it will beget technologies of transformation. For genetics has taught us that DNA is fundamental to all life, and that DNA is extremely malleable.
