I think the control of viruses such as smallpox may become irrelevant once their genomes can be synthesized de novo ("in a test tube"). There is still the chal

I think the control of viruses such as smallpox may become irrelevant once their genomes can be synthesized de novo ("in a test tube"). There is still the challenge of producing fully infectious virions but it is possible and has been done with poliovirus (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12114528 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12114528).