Another startup, Modern Meadow, is using tissue-engineering technique to produce in-vitro leather and meat without requiring the raising, slaughtering, and transporting animals.
The camp's re-engineering awards went to a group that developed a technique to alter the ID numbers on Global System for Mobile Communications cell phones and to another team that found a way to defeat a biometric fingerprint scanning system.
The genetic changes that result from any conventional technique are far less precise, predictable, and controllable than those associated with modern genetic engineering.
The technique used by Green and Hollister is part of a burgeoning field called regenerative medicine, which involves engineering therapies -- using things like stem cells, or "body parts" constructed out of biological material -- to harness the body's ability to heal itself.