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Synthetic biology is the technique that enables us not just to read and edit but also write DNA to program living biological structures as though they were tiny computers. Unlike cloning Dolly the sheep – which cut and copied existing genetic material – the future of synthetic biology might be something like an app store, where you could download and add new capabilities into any cell, microbe, plant, or animal.
This breakthrough science has the potential to mitigate, perhaps solve, humanity's immediate and longer-term existential challenges: climate change; the feeding, clothing, housing, and caring for billions of humans; fighting the next viral outbreak before it becomes a global pandemic; old age as a treatable pathology; bringing back extinct animals.
It could also be anarchic and socially destructive. With our governing structures created in an era before startling advances in technology, we are not prepared for a future in which life could be manipulated or programmed.
As futurist Amy Webb and synthetic biologist Andrew Hessel show in this book, within the next decade, we will need to make important decisions: whether to program novel viruses to fight diseases, what genetic privacy will look like, who will "own" living organisms, how companies should earn revenue from engineered cells, and how to contain a synthetic organism in a lab. The Genesis Machine provides the background for us to understand and grapple with these issues, and think through the religious, philosophical, and ethical implications for the future.
Amy Webb is the founder of the Future Today Institute, a leading foresight and strategy firm that advises CEOs of the world's most-admired companies, three-star admirals and generals, and the senior leadership of central banks and intergovernmental organizations. She is a professor of strategic foresight at New York University's Stern School of Business and a Visiting Fellow at Oxford University's Said School of Business. She was elected a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations, is a member of the Bretton Woods Committee, and serves as a Steward and Steering Committee member of the World Economic Forum. Amy was named by Forbes as "one of the five women changing the world" and was honoured as one of the BBC's 100 Women of 2020. Amy is the author of The Big Nine: How the Tech Titans and Their Thinking Machines Could Warp Humanity and The Signals are Talking: Why Today's Fringe is Tomorrow's Mainstream. She resides in Baltimore, MD.
Andrew Hessel, a pioneer and an expert in the field of synthetic biology, is the president of Humane Genomics, an early-stage company developing synthetic viruses for canine and human oncology. He is also the co-founder and chairman of the Center of Excellence for Engineering Biology and the Genome Project, the international scientific effort to engineer large genomes, including the human genome. He is a former distinguished research scientist at Autodesk Life Sciences.
"[A] road map for navigating [synthetic biology's] opportunities and perils."
– The New Yorker
"[A] fascinating survey of the present and future of biotechnology."
– Nature
"The book is a brilliant narrative of the future of human life. Webb and Hessel explain the complex matter in such a way that experts and laypeople alike can follow, whose biology lessons were a while ago."
– Handelsblatt
"The Genesis Machine is a brilliant pairing of two visionaries who offer us a comprehensive take on making a better world through biology."
– Jane Metcalfe, cofounder of Wired and CEO of NEO.LIFE
"The Genesis Machine is a tour de force! Amy Webb and Andrew Hessel masterfully reveal the emerging network of forces – people, labs, computer systems, government agencies, and businesses – that will drive humanity's next great transformation. Their fascinating (and frightening) conclusions – that the human ecosystem can actually become programmed – will touch every facet of our lives in the future. This brilliant work is an absolute must-read for national security professionals and defense planners who need to understand the complex dynamics at play in the future competition for bio-hegemony."
– Dr. Jake Sotiriadis, chief futurist, United States Air Force
"The Genesis Machine is a very readable story about how the DNA world is shifting from reading the genetic code to writing and editing it. Amy Webb and Andrew Hessel then take the reader on a journey of possible world changing events that could result from this new technology."
– J. Craig Venter, PhD, author of Life at the Speed of Life: From the Double Helix to the Dawn of Digital and CEO of JCVI
"The Genesis Machine is fantastic, explaining how genetic code is the alphabet in which much of the future will be written. Amy Webb and Andrew Hessel have taken the very complicated subject of synthetic biology and made it understandable with sharp prose and sharp analysis that cut through mysteries of science and twenty-first-century humanism."
– Alec Ross, author of The Industries of the Future and The Raging 2020s
"Are latest innovations in synthetic biology simply a miracle that ends a crisis or a breakthrough to an entirely new way of living? That's the question futurist Amy Webb and microbiologist Andrew Hessel reveal for us with this fascinating book. The history of the world is a history of unintended consequences, for better and for worse, and Webb and Hessel capture the coming fusion of tech and biology in vivid detail."
– Ian Bremmer, author of Collision Course
"This spectacular and highly accessiblebook clearly and thoughtfully examines the most important revolution of our lives – and of life itself. Understanding how we and future generations will use the tools of synthetic biology to transform the worlds inside and around us is essential to being an informed and empowered person and citizen in the twenty-first century. The Genesis Machine is a guide to exactly that and a must-read book."
– Jamie Metzl, member of WHO expert committee on human genome editing and author of Hacking Darwin: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Humanity
"We can now program biological systems like we program computers, with artificial intelligence and machine learning accelerating the speed of innovation and applications of synthetic biology. In an accessible and fascinating narrative, The Genesis Machine lays out a roadmap for this interdisciplinary field of synthetic biology that is forever reshaping life as we know it."
– Rana el Kaliouby, author of Girl Decoded: A Scientist's Quest to Reclaim Our Humanity by Bringing Emotional Intelligence to Technology and deputy CEO, Smart Eye
"You may not realize it yet, but your life – and all of life itself – is about to change. From programmable genes to designer medicines, synthetic biology is going to transform everything. The Genesis Machine is a surprisingly intimate, incisive, and readable guide to the opportunities, risks, and moral dilemmas of the brave new world ahead."
– Steven Strogatz, Cornell University, author of Infinite Powers
"[D]eeply researched but accessible prose [...] A wrinkle on the near future that many readers will not have pondered – and should."
– Kirkus
"[A] thought-provoking introduction to synthetic biology [...] [a] breathtaking science, but it is also scary. Who's in charge, and where are the brakes?"
– Booklist
