No widely accepted definition of synthetic biology yet exists. In general, the descriptions in use encompass both the biological and the engineering features of the enterprise. Practitioners frequently define it functionally, including the ability to design and construct new biological components and to redesign existing biological systems. By whatever definition, synthetic biology is destined to become a future issue in the news and in other forums for public debate.

For a number of reasons, synthetic biology as an emerging technology is contentious. The collection of technologies going under this name, taken as a whole, allows not only for the possibility of constructing replicates of organisms such as viruses, but, in the future, could allow for the possibility of constructing completely novel cells.