This is a good assessment. And Dr. Smolke (the author) is actually at the very forefront of combining and mixing up many pathways in one system to create a new

This is a good assessment. And Dr. Smolke (the author) is actually at the very forefront of combining and mixing up many pathways in one system to create a new compound. Her skill at engineering multiple pathways at the same time is at the edge of the state of the art. So that can be taken two ways - either she's one of very few who can do it, so she's overconfident in how well others can follow. Or, she is uniquely aware of the challenges yet sees a path through them heading into the future.