> “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?
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.
the left handed life thing is the only thing that makes me wonder about Adamala's judgement... there zero plausible mechanism for left handed life to succesfully compete.
in case you didn't know, your immune system WILL detect left handed pathogens, possibly more aggressively, and two of the body's mechanisms for fighting infection -- fever and ozonolysis -- are distinctly achiral
Arguably we should push for mirror life for industrial purposes FASTER because biocontrol is easier (they got nothing to eat) and lab escape is far less likely
Back then, it sounded like making right-handed life was decades away. But with this work, couldn't you just as easily make this kind of synthetic cell right-handed?
“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 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.
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.
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.
You stumble upon a news article from 2226. You read it to see who, between Google, OpenAI and Anthropic, won the AI race.
Instead, your learn about Biotic.
It's now the leading polity in the solar system and its environs. It bought Alphabet, OpenAI and Anthropic in a single day back in 2084.
Humans are no longer desired. Their reproduction is capped to an optimal minimum assuring the survival of the species as a relic.
For productive matters, Biotec preferes to rely on its biomachines. Imagine drones giving birth to offspring when traffic is at a peak. It takes more energy, sure. But no factory, nor workers are needed.
If left alone, machines would multiply out of control, instead of rotting to waste like in the olden days.
Interesting thought experiment, but I don't see why automating machines that build and repair other machines wouldn't be sufficient. At the limit, such a machine would be able to repair itself, or repair other long-running machines. I imagine it would come down to wear and efficiency loss.
I'm not too well read so Mars Express is the first fiction where I came across these themes. Highly recommend. When I watched it 18 months ago I didn't realize real development was ongoing in these scifi-seeming fields
Humans have the power to self reproduce though. I don’t believe anything short of an engineered disease could wipe out all of humanity at this point and it has to happen soon before we figure out how to fix all of our problems using genetic engineering.
You stumble across another article from 2226: It describes how the Earth was consumed by a grey-goo apocalypse of nanotechnology beyond human comprehension, so that no pore of its surface is untouched by reservoirs of rogue units, all of which are in a constant arms-race of development and combat. Some have formed groups that construct colossal moving megastructures piloted by inscrutable hive-minds.
The article notes that this event actually occurred ~3.5 billion years ago, and suggests that the current hive-mind should buy a subscription.
78 comments
[ 5.4 ms ] story [ 23.4 ms ] threadThat 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?
Its really easy now to engineer novel deadly viruses thanks to alphafold3
in case you didn't know, your immune system WILL detect left handed pathogens, possibly more aggressively, and two of the body's mechanisms for fighting infection -- fever and ozonolysis -- are distinctly achiral
Arguably we should push for mirror life for industrial purposes FASTER because biocontrol is easier (they got nothing to eat) and lab escape is far less likely
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.
Also, go MN!
Will they be hated? Killed off? Will they ever be see as legitimate, or just soulless beings, p-zombies.
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
> 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...
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/07/01/science/spudc...
Can't blame her if she wants her line of research to stay alive
Contradicting themself in the same paragraph.
Instead, your learn about Biotic.
It's now the leading polity in the solar system and its environs. It bought Alphabet, OpenAI and Anthropic in a single day back in 2084.
Humans are no longer desired. Their reproduction is capped to an optimal minimum assuring the survival of the species as a relic.
For productive matters, Biotec preferes to rely on its biomachines. Imagine drones giving birth to offspring when traffic is at a peak. It takes more energy, sure. But no factory, nor workers are needed.
If left alone, machines would multiply out of control, instead of rotting to waste like in the olden days.
The article notes that this event actually occurred ~3.5 billion years ago, and suggests that the current hive-mind should buy a subscription.