Craig Venter and his team have come up with a genome transplantation method that transforms one type of bacteria into another, dictated by the transplanted chromosome. In other words, one species turns into a different one. Venter said further:

Now we know we can boot up a chromosome system. It doesn’t matter if the DNA is chemically made in a cell or made in a test tube.

and then concluded:

This is a major advance in the field of synthetic genomics. We now know we can create a synthetic organism. It’s not a question of ‘if’, or ‘how’, but ‘when’, and in this regard, think weeks and months, not years.

To borrow Zaphod Beeblebrox’s phrase, Phreeow. This is an enormous, astonishing advance in genetics, and is bound to affect everyone on the planet.

BoingBoing links to the full text of the interview, along with some other news items about the research.