Synthetic biology is an emerging form of bioengineering institutionalized by the Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center (SynBERC), funded by the National Science Foundation.  Because of its proposals to engineer life from the ground up in order to address pressing energy and medical problems, the field has raised scientific and ethical questions as to the process involved with such research and the context of the human problems it addresses.  As an introduction to this website and its approach in general, this introductory primer of synthetic biology sets out to avoid polemics and to provide an informative foundation to the interconnected problems that are the focus of synthetic biology research.  Included in all ten nodes of the primer is information on both the bioengineering complexities and the human practices ramifications of the topic in question.  “Bioengineering” here refers to the natural sciences research, fundamental and applicable, of synthetic biology.  “Human practices” here refers to the anthropological context of this research, with emphasis on the ethical and cultural aspects of scientific inquiry.