Steven Benner heads the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution, which he founded after serving on faculty at Harvard, ETH Zurich, and University of Florida. His research combines two traditions in science, one from natural history, the other from the physical sciences. His laboratory has been a leader in the field of synthetic biology, where it has redesigned DNA to better understand how these molecules work, generate new classes of diagnostics tools, and to open new avenues to disease therapy. Separately, he also created the field of paleogenetics, his work also guides NASA missions to search for alien life and how life originated. His most recent book is: "Life, the Universe, and the Scientific Method."