Abstract:Synthetic biology is an emerging field of biological research that combines science and engineering to study the mechanism of life and for a variety of technological applications, which could enable scientists to design and construct increasingly complex genetic devices and circuits, to synthesize and assembly bacterial genomes, and to develop artificially modified biological systems to produce renewable chemicals, biofuels, pharmaceuticals, health care products and new tools for environment protection. With the rapid development of synthetic biology, an important and urgent problem is raised: how do we ensure the biosecurity of synthetic organism? In the synthetic organism related research, such as synthetic biology and the generation of genetically-modified organism, many high toxic biological parts from virus, pathogenic bacteria and fungi have been exploited. The numbers of toxic genes and regulating genes used in the research has risen to hundreds, and to even redesigning the whole genome. A lack of necessary oversight or malicious utilization, these synthetic organism can cause severe risks including irreversible effects on ecosystems, hazards to public health, and threats to the national security. Accordingly, it is necessary to design suitable strategies to achieve a high level biocontainment for engineered organism, which can prevent the non-intended proliferation in the natural environment, horizontal gene transfer, ability to evolve and adapt, so as to reach the final aim of “Artificial life”. Here, we will review the potential risks of synthetic organism and the strategies to make “artificial life”. Finally, some suggestions for enacting the norms of biosafety will be addressed. And proper regulations should be developed to support the innovation and related application transformation while protecting the public from potential harms.