This company, Synthetic Genomics, I'm involved with, created the first full synthetic genome for a little bug, a very primitive creature called Mycoplasma genitalium.

In 2008, we reported the complete synthesis of the Mycoplasma genitalium genome, a little over 500,000 letters of genetic code, but we have not yet succeeded in booting up that chromosome.

Because of the problems with Mycoplasma genitalium and its slow growth about a year and a half ago, we decided to synthesize the much larger chromosome, the mycoides chromosome, knowing that we had the biology worked out on that for transplantation.