there was a good bbc program about this a while ago following their progress.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00m6nhq

to be honest I think creating "life" is nothing more extraordinary than any other chemical. What we call "alive" is nothing but a small definition. I consider a virus to be primitive life and self replicating nano machines a virus. except you won't hear many scientists say that. "we're not creating a virus we're creating a tool (machine)".