To deal with the pressing housing problem, the government has shifted its emphasis from building new brick and mortar houses toward in-situ upgrading of existing informal settlements and providing access to services.
Although the outside world may see headlines about fancy projects such as the building of new institutions, the change to science required in Arab countries is not about bricks-and-mortar improvement but about building intellectual capacity.
The 36-year-old professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology is the intellectual ringleader of a cadre of "synthetic biologists" who are building useful devices out of genetic material, much as bits of mortar or silicon are used to erect complex objects.