the setting of text for replication. What is the DNA-equivalent of the word processor? Word processing was rapidly adopted as a replacement for the typewriter when users had discovered its revolutionary advantages in document creation, editing, formatting and saving. While the electronic representation of text in computers allows the processing of text within a simple unified framework, DNA processing the creation of variations and combinations of existing DNA is performed by biology labs daily using a plethora of unrelated manual labor-intensive methods. As a result, so far no universal method for DNA processing has been proposed and, consequently, no engineering discipline that further utilizes the processed DNA has emerged. Shapiro founded the CADMAD consortium, which aims to deliver a revolution in DNA processing analogous to the revolution text editing underwent with the introduction of electronic text editors. The biotechnology revolution has, to a large extent, been held back by its notoriously prolonged R&D cycle compared to the computer programming cycle. A CAD/CAM technology for DNA which will bring word processor ease to DNA processing and thus support rapid DNA programming will revolutionize biotechnology by shortening the R&D cycle of DNA-based applications. This can only be accomplished by concerting the development of complex, multi-layered technologies which integrate expertise from fields as varied as algorithmics, software engineering, biotechnology, robotics and chemistry. These are only now starting to emerge as feasible. Human cell lineage tree In 2005, Shapiro presented a vision of the next grand challenge in Human biology: To uncover the Human cell lineage Tree. Inside all of us is a cell lineage tree the history of how our body grows from a single cell (the fertilized egg) to 100 trillion cells. The biological and biomedical impact of such a success could be of a magnitude similar, if not larger than that of the Human Genome Project. Every human being starts as a single cell the fusion of an egg and a sperm and progresses via cell division and cell death through development, birth, growth, and aging. Human health depends on maintaining a proper process of cell division, renewal and death, and humanity's most severe diseases, notably cancer, auto-immune diseases, diabetes, neuro-degenerative and cardiovascular disorders, and the multitude of inherited rare diseases are all the result of specific aberrations in this process. The history of a person's cells, from conception until any particular moment in time, can be captured by a mathematical