For first time, a cell built from scratch grows and divides

bensyverson

> “It’s a big step forward to this holy grail of making a living thing out of dead components,” said Sijbren Otto, a systems chemist at the Stratingh Institute for Chemistry in the Netherlands who was not involved in the work. That is the holy grail? I get that the goal is to "grow" biofuels, plastic, fertilizer, drugs, or whatever else we can imagine. But is that worth the many apocalyptic sci-fi outcomes we can imagine?

burnte

Interesting that this is led by the same Dr. Kate Adamala who ended the right-handed-proteins experiment a couple of years ago. Given how close she was I'm not surprised she's made this work.

soraki_soladead

This is awesome! Can someone in this field comment on the implications of sidestepping the cytoskeleton?

small_model

The aliens that seeded life on Earth are seeing us making baby steps. Expect a visit soon!

JumpCrisscross

“This was where the field had been stuck for some time. Researchers before Adamala had figured out different ways to feed and grow synthetic cells and to replicate their DNA. But cell division is a different beast. A typical cell reorganizes its cytoskeleton — a network of protein fibers that provide structural support — to halve its DNA and split. Synthetic biologists could not figure out how to get their cells to undergo this complex process. So Adamala decided to ditch the cytoskeleton. One day, while tearing through the literature, she came across an interesting mechanism in a paper (opens a new tab). By attaching protein tags to a cell membrane, the synthetic biologist Reinhard Lipowsky (opens a new tab) at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces attracted other proteins to crowd around and physically bend the membrane, forcing the cell to divide. Following this approach, Adamala tweaked a cell-membrane protein and tested it in her protocells. After several tries, it worked.“ This is the novel bit.

mghackerlady

I wonder if these principles could be applied to non-organic components. I imagine a completely synthetic robo-cell would raise interesting questions. Also, go MN!

HanClinto

"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe"

codemax98

I love exciting scientific news like this

joh6nn

For the love of all things holy, can we not do these kinds of experiments on the same planet we live on?

humanfromearth9

I wonder what animal or plant would grow out of that...

quux

Also discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48747038

deadbabe

Going by people’s reactions to AI, what will our reactions be to artificial humans generated from these methods? Will they be hated? Killed off? Will they ever be see as legitimate, or just soulless beings, p-zombies.

Imustaskforhelp

This is so cool! I had once gone in the rabbit-hole of finding artificial life and there were experiments which did multiple phases but none which did the whole thing and I was left wondering why. I am a bit happy to see that someone was working on it (and succeeded!) There is another submission on Hackernews which talks about: The first early human eggs from stem cells[0] which is an interesting discussion to read through on hackernews as well. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48742483

october8140

This is really cool. But I dislike the dialog where because step 1 happened people talk like steps 2-100 are not inevitable.

germandiago

That is closer to consciousness than AI will ever be. :)

merksittich

Science News has a more balanced take, with additional quotes from peers. > Some have also grumbled about Adamala’s efforts to draw attention to the work, which she says was rejected by Cell after one reviewer said SpudCells were not real biology. She then sent the 190-page manuscript to journalists, under embargo, even before she had uploaded it to the preprint server bioRxiv, where her colleagues could read and assess it. She says her group will submit it to a new journal soon. “It’s an unusual way of doing things,” says Kerstin Göpfrich, a synthetic biologist at Heidelberg University. https://www.science.org/content/article/lab-created-spudcell...

srean

Waiting for lab-grown meat. Hope it comes closer to fruition before my kidneys give out.

1-6

"The cell is not alive by any definition..." "But it’s the strongest demonstration yet that it is possible to generate life from nonlife." Contradicting themself in the same paragraph.

Tenoke

This is great, I assumed we were getting close (and not quite there), so it's great to see the progress. The path from here to building a single-celled organism out of nonlive materials looks very straight.