In the wake of last year's creation of the first self-replicating cell with a synthetic genome – which was quickly followed by a request from President Barack Obama for a report by the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues – a series of essays in the Hastings Center Report examines the social challenges that synthetic biology presents.

ALBANY, N.Y., May 18, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Albany Law School Professor Alicia Ouellette's latest book, Bioethics and Disability: Toward a Disability-Conscious Bioethics, takes on the tension between disability rights scholars and bioethicists.