From MIT Tech. Review: Startup: Designer Life:

"Since synthetic biologists engineer genomes from scratch, instead of modifying naturally occurring ones, they should be able to create proteins and cells with novel and complex capabilities. Synthetic biologists say they want to design and build genomes in the same way that electrical engineers make integrated circuits. 'They've been doing large-scale integrated circuits since I was a kid. Now we're trying to do large-scale integrated biological circuits,' says Harvard Medical School geneticist George Church, Codon [Devices]' cofounder and chief scientific officer."

Hmmm. Viruses have much smaller genomes than organisms made of cells. I wonder if Codon Devices has been approached yet by the CIA or Pentagon or any foreign governments.