On the contrary, the breakthroughs you speak of will, like all new technologies, be expensive only at initial introduction. Efficiencies of scale rapidly reduce these costs in technology and make them available to the masses. Sequencing an entire human genome cost millions of dollars only a few years ago. Now it can be done for $350,000 and a company has announced availability of whole-genome sequencing for $5,000. In a couple more years it will be less than $100. Soon after, it will be nearly free.

Many of these emerging technologies will be drugs like those based on resveratrol in clinical trials by Glaxo Smith Kline, which are coming to market as treatment for diabetes. To be competitive, the pills will have to be in the $3-$4 range. Once the drug goes off-label, that cost will drop precipitously.

Cells ARE more complicated than chips. But cells are exactly as complicated now as they were 100,000 years ago. Chips, on the other hand, are growing in capability and shrinking in cost at an exponential rate. Besides, it is irrelevant how complex a chip is. What is relevant is our ability to see and analyze cells and their processes in real time. That capability is also demonstrably growing exponentially.

Moreover, cells are constructed out of proteins according to instructions contained in our DNA. DNA is, like a chip, a digital storage medium. It is itself a nanoscale information technology, and it contains only several megabytes of information. Complex, yes, but subject to computer analysis, and subject to accelerating returns.

Yes, evolution has produced exquisite mechanisms. But evolution is a hapahazard process that does not produce optimal solutions.

We are at a tipping point here. It's not hubris to be aware of that. It's vital.