By MSNBC
Added: Fri, 26 Dec 2008 00:00:00 UTC

Reposted from:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28390773/

Critics worry amateurs could unleash an environmental or medical disaster

SAN FRANCISCO - The Apple computer was invented in a garage. Same with the Google search engine. Now, tinkerers are working at home with the basic building blocks of life itself.

Using homemade lab equipment and the wealth of scientific knowledge available online, these hobbyists are trying to create new life forms through genetic engineering — a field long dominated by Ph.D.s toiling in university and corporate laboratories.

In her San Francisco dining room lab, for example, 31-year-old computer programmer Meredith L. Patterson is trying to develop genetically altered yogurt bacteria that will glow green to signal the presence of melamine, the chemical that turned Chinese-made baby formula and pet food deadly.

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TAGGED: BIOLOGY, GENETICS