A perspective on natural genetic engineering and natural genome editing. Introduction -- Revisiting the central dogma in the 21st century -- Deconstructing the dogma: a new view of the evolution and genetic programming of complex organisms -- On the origin of cells and viruses: primordial virus world scenario -- The great billion-year war between ribosome- and capsid-encoding organisms (cells and viruses) as the major source of evolutionary novelties -- Learning from bacteria about natural information processing -- The viral eukaryogenesis hypothesis: a key role for viruses in the emergence of eukaryotes from a prokaryotic world environment -- Cell-cell channels, viruses, and evolution: via infection, parasitism, and symbiosis toward higher levels of biological complexity -- Impact of RNA virus infection on plant cell function and evolution -- Hen or egg?: some thoughts on tunneling nanotubes -- Evolution of genes and organisms: the tree/web of life in light of horizontal gene transfer -- The natural genetic engineering of polydnaviruses -- Friendly viruses: the special relationship between endogenous retroviruses and their host -- Natural genetic engineering of hepatitis C virus NS5A for immune system counterattack -- The fragmented gene -- The source of self: genetic parasites and the origin of adaptive immunity -- Cellular genes derived from Gypsy/Ty3 retrotransposons in mammalian genomes -- Noncoding RNAs: persistent viral agents as modular tools for cellular needs -- APOBEC3 proteins inhibit LINE-1 retrotransposition in the absence of ORF1p binding -- Epigenetic regulation of Mammalian genomes by transposable elements -- Are there epigenetic controls in Trypanosoma cruzi? -- Conceptual and methodological biases in network models -- No genetics without epigenetics? No biology without systems biology?