Premature announcement by the Guardian-

The J. Craig Venter Institute at Rockville, MD, team headed by Hamilton Smith, who shared the 1978 Nobel Prize for Medicine, is the site of the research; they have a branch in La Jolla, CA.

Today, a Venter spokeswoman declined to confirm any breakthrough. "The Guardian is ahead of themselves on this," Heather Kowalski told the AFP.
"We have not achieved what some have speculated we have in synthetic life," Kowalski said. "When we do so there will be a scientific publication and we are likely months away from that."
In 2006, the Institute filed for patent on the organism, claiming ownership of a set of essential genes and a synthetic "free-living organism that can grow and replicate." The patent would be valid in the United States and about 100 countries. Experts said that the Venter Institute probably had not achieved a fully functioning organism at the time of filing.

The project is partially financed by the U. S. Dept. of Energy in the hopes that it could lead to the creation of a new environmentally fuel.
On the verge announcement