Synthetic Futures or Superhuman Fears? The Genetic Frontier Stirring Global Debate
A groundbreaking and highly controversial scientific initiative is now underway in the UK, as leading British researchers aim to synthesize the first human genome entirely from scratch, not by altering existing DNA, but by building it letter by letter in the lab. Spearheaded by scientists from the University of Oxford, Cambridge, Kent, Manchester, and Imperial College London, this ambitious project is known as the Synthetic Human Genome (SynHG) project and is being funded by the Wellcome Trust, the world’s largest medical research charity.