Gene synthesis

Gene synthesis is the process of synthesizing an artificially designed gene into a physical DNA sequence.

Gene synthesis was first demonstrated by Har Gobind Khorana in 1970 for a short artificial gene. Nowadays, commercial gene synthesis services are available from hundreds of companies worldwide, with a price often below $1 a base pair. Some expressed concern that such services could be used by terrorists to create new strains of existing viruses/bacterias, or to resurrect extinct biological hazard organisms.