Updates in molecular genetics, biomolecular and physiological modeling software, advanced genome cloning and synthesis technologies, developments in synthetic tissue and organs, bioinfomatics, in-silico biology, and related forms of computing, IT resources, and an evermore  diverse range of interrelated technologies are forging the progenitors of an ultimate example of convergence, as a process dynamic, emergent business model, and socio-economic paradigm of unprecedented trans-formative nature.

What is about to transpire is the rapid evolution into an era where health care, the very definition of "medicine", or for that matter, even life itself as it is currently understood to be, is in a state of transition.  This phenomena is directly in parallel with changes in agricultural procedures, bio-resource management, and ultimately, the defacto equivalent of bio-engineering entire ecosystems.

Note the computer generateed "virtual protein" model.  This complex molecular structure was actually evolved, utilizing genetic algorithms on a reconfigurable computing platform to derive this proteomic solution.   This is an example of biological metaphors in computing being utilized to create the physical biological materials of our future evolution.
Dave Fogel, Natural Solutions Inc.

Nature's nanofoundry - the cell

Insilico biology - dynamic schematic modeling of a "virtual cell"

Previous, recent "ages" of technology and economic development, with substantial, and irreversible social and cultural influences, such as the "Computing Age", subsequently evolving into the "Information Age" - driven by the combination of the internet, and ubiquitously distributed computing capacity, are only the minimal progenitors of what is about to emerge, "the Nanotechnology Age", the first stage progenitor of which is the phenomena of bioconvergence.

Evolutionary computing, which mimics evolutionary processes as they occur in nature, is already utilized to provide solutions to complex problems and procedures which in many cases would not be possible via "traditional" computing techniques.

The definition of life itself has become blurred, the virtual and real have converged together into a continuum, the infotech / biotech / nanotech operational ecology.   This convergence phenomena has spawned the most powerful tools of creation ever invented, which have synergistically accelerated the human species into a realm of transformation which, in just the past decade, supercedes all of the 2 ½ million years of human socio-technological evolution preceding this moment in time.  

Knowledge velocity, complexity, and scale are surpassing human decision rendering capacity, compressed into ever diminishing timescales.   We are entering into a realm where mission critical decision rendering is evermore reliant upon forms of artificial life and evolved intelligences, fostered by biological metaphors in computing to which we, the human species, is symbiotically dependent.   This is the operational threshold of symbiotic intelligence, facilitated with and accelerated by the current bioconvergence phenomena.