The work the Venter group has done is impressive in it's technical development but synthia is just an organism that had its genome removed and replaced by one made in a lab. The one that was made was a copy of a genome found in nature so nothing as innovative as a truly synthetic organism.
Copying from nature is one thing, understanding how nature works and redesigning it for a different purpose is another thing entirely
Copying from nature is one thing, understanding how nature works and redesigning it for a different purpose is another thing entirely