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A ripe round of brie sits next to a block of farmhouse cheddar, emitting a pungent aroma not dissimilar to the musky whiff found at the bottom of a laundry basket. "That one comes from my armpit," says Daisy Ginsberg, pointing to the brie. "The other one comes from the artist's mouth." There is a third block, labelled Ben's Natural Rind Cheese. I don't want to ask where that comes from.

These cheeses, which you could call edible self-portraits, are grown from human bacteria by American biologist Christina Agapakis, with the help of Norwegian artist Sissel Tolaas. They are one of 25 projects Ginsberg has brought to the Science Gallery in Dublin for Grow Your Own, an exhibition that shows how artists are working with scientists to explore the rapidly expanding field of synthetic biology – the practice of interfering in the design of organic life. It can perhaps be summed up in an intriguing question raised by one of the artists in this show: would a mouse with Elvis's DNA behave like him?

"It's causing...