"Does this seem like a good idea?"  

I never heard the phrase "DNA Hackers" before.

And no, this seems like it could go horribly wrong.

Are you watching the video all the way through?  It will BLOW YOUR MIND!!  "CambrianGenomics.com" definitely got my attention.

More on the movement here:  http://p2pfoundation.net/BioCurious

Disrupt!  Disrupt!  Disrupt!  They are democratizing creation.

Holy smokes. Thank you for telling me to watch that all the way through!

Let's let DARPA do it for billions of dollars. 

"The goal of the Living Foundries program is to leverage the unparalleled synthetic and functional capabilities of biology to create a revolutionary, biologically-based manufacturing platform to provide access to new materials, capabilities and manufacturing paradigms for the DoD and the Nation. Engineering biology is emerging as a powerful technology with the potential for significant impact in multiple areas, including novel materials, sensing capabilities and therapeutics. However, the present ability to harness that potential is limited by the ad hoc, trial-and-error process that defines the current SOA. 

Living Foundries seeks to transform biology into an engineering practice by developing the tools, technologies, methodologies, and infrastructure to speed the biological design-built-test-learn cycle and expand the complexity of systems that can be engineered.  The tools and infrastructure developed as part of this program are expected to enable the rapid and scalable development of transformative products and systems that are currently too complex to access."

http://www.darpa.mil/Our_Work/BTO/Programs/Living_Foundries.aspx

If DARPA does fund it, does that mean it will be weaponized?

Huge culture war coming:  http://pandawhale.com/post/44345/genetic-design-made-easy-1-user-interface-for-dna-design

We live in times of great disruption.