[eggdude]

I'm not a biology expert, but from my understanding, they wouldn't be able to "make a baby" as output. But they could make a cell that contains the specified DNA that would grow into a baby under the right conditions. Of course, we are still a ways out from having that technology.

[hirenj]

What I think you're alluding to is something like this:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/may/20/craig-venter-s...

I haven't been following the progress for the past year and a half or so, but it was state of the art then.

Long story short, we're not synthesizing de-novo babies any time soon! Well, at least not in the lab.

[biopharma_guy]

There are technological issue and then there are ethical issues. I can say we are several decades away from making a baby just by stitching raw genome data. There are 30,000 genes in human genome. Think the number of possible combinations that can arise only choosing few good genes are optimizing for a developing a tailor made human being. And the ethical challenge is huge too.