I just read a great article from the edge on synthetic biology and genetic engineering.  Basically they are now trying to develop bio-fabrication labs so that it will be easy for anyone to program new organisms.  These organisms could be drought-resistant crops, they might produce building materials, etc.  But he makes an interesting analogy to computers.  Everyone has free access to program computers.  It has created tons of great things and advances but you also have the computer viruses and spam emails and things like that.  If everyone is given access to program their own organisms, the results could be much more dramatic.  Hackers could be writing deadly human viruses, but also researchers could develop lots of extremely beneficial things.