On the Future of Species

‘Visionary and exhilarating … A work of astonishing scope and imagination’ Tim Coulson
‘The book we need right now … Essential reading’ Tom Ellis
‘A brilliantly crafted, sweeping exposition with profound insights’ Tim White

Imagine a future where we grow houses rather than build them. Where smartphones are living, clothing has opinions, and all human knowledge fits into a speck of DNA. A world where disease is a thing of the past, and the human lifespan is dramatically extended.

To achieve this, says Adrian Woolfson – founder of the genome writing company Genyro – we must transform biology into a predictive, programmable engineering material. That means decoding the generative grammar of DNA: the language of life itself. It may then be possible to author genomes – and, if we choose, even rewrite our own.

We are at the cusp of a technological revolution, driven by the convergence of artificial intelligence and synthetic biology. Currently at the scribbling phase – writing the genomes of viruses, bacteria and yeast – we will eventually author the genomes of extinct and never-before-realised species. Life will become computable, detached from its past, and no longer bound by Darwinian evolution.

While offering extraordinary opportunities, this power also carries great risk and it is vital for everyone to understand what the future might hold. Genome writing can help preserve the planet, but may also undermine human nature and disrupt ecosystems. In this bold and visionary account, Woolfson provides a guide to how this might all be achieved and how we should navigate this astonishing new world, offering a moral compass to help us do so safely, wisely and ethically.

Author Biography

Adrian Woolfson is the co-founder of Genyro, a California-based biotechnology company specialising in synthetic genome design and construction. Born in London, he studied medicine at Balliol College, Oxford, and was formerly the Charles and Katherine Darwin Research Fellow at Darwin College, Cambridge, working at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology. He is the author of the critically acclaimed Life Without Genes: The History and Future of Genomes and An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Genetics. He has authored over 160 scientific papers, book chapters, reviews, and patents, and is a regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal and Science magazine. He currently lives in San Francisco.