As a scientist, I clearly see the potential for harnessing the power of nature.

Agriculture as we know it needs to disappear. We can design better and healthier proteins than we get from nature.

You'd need a very specialized electron microscope to get down to the level to actually see a single strand of DNA.

We have 200 trillion cells, and the outcome of each of them is almost 100 percent genetically determined. And that's what our experiment with the first synthetic genome proves, at least in the case of really simple bacteria. It's the interactions of all those separate genetic units that give us the physiology that we see.

We have hardly begun to tap the potential that is already provided by nature.

We can now diagnose diseases that haven't even manifested in the patient, and may not until the fifth decade of life - if at all.