Books: ‘On the Future of Species’ by Adrian Woolfson: Reimagining life through artificial biology

Imagine this, a decade from now. You walk into your office at a biotech firm. The orders are already in. An aerospace company wants you to design a bacterium that churns out rocket fuel. A medical startup needs an artificial human liver for organ replacement. The city council is asking whether you can create a microbe that turns greywater drinkable. And on the side, the space agency is quietly toying with an idea: developing humans who can survive the harsh conditions of Mars, now that we have colonised it. Detailing such tantalising possibilities and the road to reaching them is the central theme of biologist Adrian Woolfson’s recent book, ‘On the Future of Species: Authoring Life by Means of Artificial Biological Intelligence’.