On the kitchen table of his cramped apartment, Josiah Zayner is performing the feat that is transforming biology.

In tiny vials, he’s cutting, pasting and stirring genes, as simply as mixing a vodka tonic. Next, he slides his new hybrid creations, living in petri dishes, onto a refrigerator shelf next to the vegetables.

…

“You’ve got guys with B.S. degrees, in a garage,” warned Hank Greely, director of Stanford’s Center for Law and the Biosciences at an international summit of the National Academy of Sciences this month.