Bid to program new life forms with ‘operating system’ for cells.
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/11/18/tech/innovation/program-living-cells/index.html

“For each single application you have in mind, you have to start from scratch, and you have to start all of the design of the biological roots from scratch,” he said. “The analogy in the computer industry would be that each time you write a computer program you have to write the entire operating system.”

That’s why Krasnogor hopes his team will be able to create a line of cells running a generic “cellular operating system” that could be re-programmed with different applications.