A little over 50 years ago, molecular biologists developed the first tools of genetic engineering. With them came the ability to rewrite the genetic code and possibly create—in test tubes—organisms that had never before existed. At the time, it seemed as though “molecular biologists had reached the edge of an experimental precipice that may ultimately prove equal to that faced by nuclear physicists in the years prior to the atomic bomb,” as commentators pointed out in the popular press (Rogers 1975).
This article was written by Filippa Lentzos and originally published by The Bulletin Of The Atomic Scientists.
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