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There's already a lot of active research going on using the Crispr technology to fix diseases like Duchenne muscular dystrophy or cystic fibrosis or Huntington's disease. They're all diseases that have known genetic causes, and we now have the technology that can repair those mutations to provide, we hope, patients with a normal life.

I hope that the image of gene therapy is changing. It seems to be.

I think gene therapy and nanotechnology go hand in hand.

There have been lots of stories written about all the hype over getting the genome done and the letdown of not discovering lots of cures right after.

In the past, when we've tried gene therapy, we haven't had tools that have allowed targeted gene correction.

Even if we never cure a single disease, the Human Genome Project and other ventures will have been worth it.

Genome design is going to be a key part of the future. That's why we need fast, cheap, accurate DNA synthesis, so you can make a lot of iterations of something and test them.

Right now people are interested in genetic engineering to help the human race. That's a noble cause, and that's where we should be heading. But once we get past that - once we understand what genetic diseases we can deal with - when we start thinking about the future, there's an opportunity to create some new life-forms.

Gene therapy technology is much like computing technology. We had to build the super computer which cost $8 million in 1960. Now everyone has technologies that work predictably and at a cost the average person can afford.

Genetically modified foods are good.