RE: Web program simplifies artificial gene design

This is where we're going to get the biggest jump in health benefits, the combination of "GNR" (Genetics, Nanotechnology, Robotics/Computing). This is the first step to combining the power of two of these fields. The combination is going to allow us to create completely new gene sequences, and then new proteins. Once we can simulate protein folding and chemical reactions with any certainty, this will allow us to engineer our own proteins, hopefully better than the ones that were chanced upon us (albeit through a long history of selective breeding), that we can test many orders of magnitude faster than mother nature can. Once the third, nanotechnology, is integrated, we will be able to correct or improve our own genetic code.

Software that handles many tricky steps in creating artificial DNA is released, but its writers acknowledge the technology has the potential for misuse

[Via New Scientist - Latest Headlines]