IMAGINE if you had the recipe for breathing life into inanimate chemicals. This is exactly what a handful of ambitious researchers in labs around the world are planning to do. They aim to discover the essential genes needed to support a simple living cell, stitch together this "minimal genome" and then press the on switch.

Building a genome from scratch could be seen as an extension of existing genetic engineering techniques - albeit one of the most audacious projects ever attempted. But other researchers want to go further and re-engineer life using chemicals not chosen by evolution. Such cells could be nanotechnology factories, or even form the basis of biological computers. It means there could one day be a new form of life on Earth - and one that is unquestionably the product of intelligent design.

"We'd like to rebuild a complete genome, based on knowing the first principles of ...