Designing Synthetic Cells

Remember Jacques Loeb? Before 1900, he was studying biological processes in order to control life. He sought to engineer life to make it behave how he wanted. Today, researchers in engineering and biology lead the way in the quest to synthesize cells to do what we want.

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Loeb said in 1902 in McClure's magazine: "I wanted to take life in my hands and play with it, I wanted to handle it in my laboratory as I would any other chemical reaction - to start it, stop it, vary it, study it under every condition, to direct it at my will!'

Diagram of the process of sea urchin egg cells dividing (two phases) HoverTouch to magnify
Sea urchin egg cells dividing in response to an artificial membrane

Loeb 19131

小蝌蚪视频 Rare Books Collection

Since 1902, researchers have developed many new tools and methods to synthesize cells. But just as there is no single right way to visualize a cell, there is no single right synthetic cell. Researchers design their cells based on the questions they want to ask and answer.

They are asking questions like:

Can we redesign the structure of cells?

At the Center for Cellular Construction, researchers start with a cell blueprint based on a list of desired features of drawings. Then, they use models or data to predict what kinds of genetic molecular changes are needed to achieve that blueprint in a final synthesized cell.

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Center for Cellular Construction 20212

cyborg cell diagram HoverTouch to magnify

Cyborg Cell group 20213

Can we engineer cell parts to make cells move in ways that we want?

The Cyborg Cell group attempts to introduce materials that can be externally controlled, such as magnets, into cells to direct cellular structures and achieve new functions.聽

Researchers from many different disciplines make聽up these groups. Cell biologists, computational聽modelers, engineers, physicists, sociologists,聽historians, and more are designing synthetic cells聽together to investigate basic rules of life. The聽diversity of perspectives and methods enables聽them to explore many possibilities.

the group of cyborg cell researchers works together to learn about cells HoverTouch to magnify
The Cyborg Cell Team

Guerrero 20214

proteocell diagram HoverTouch to magnify

ProteoCell team 20215

Can we build cells with different materials?

The membranes of cells and their organelles are聽primarily made of lipids. The ProteoCell Team uses聽alternative biological materials, like proteins and聽peptides, to build synthetic compartments.

Can we give synthetic cells memory?

The SynCell Learning group aims to 鈥減rogram鈥澛燼 synthetic cell to perform associative learning聽tasks, like Pavlovian conditioning: in this case,聽learning to 鈥渟alivate鈥 (produce GFP) in response聽to a 鈥渂ell鈥 (blue light) after repeated pairing of聽the 鈥渂ell鈥 with a chemical input.

diagram of how to program memory into synthetic cell HoverTouch to magnify

SynCell Group 20216

Microscopy is integral to designing synthetic cells. It has shown us cells and what is inside them. It has raised many questions about how these living units work in themselves and in organisms. Images made with microscopes help us share what we see as evidence of what is there and what it's doing. How, then, do images help us imagine synthetic cells?
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  1. Loeb, Jacques.聽Artificial Parthenogenesis and Fertilization. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1913. Page 74, Figures 21 and 22.
  2. Center for Cellular Construction, Conceptual Diagram of the Center鈥檚 Work Philosophy, Digital media, 2021.聽
  3. Cyborg Cell group (Elting, M., Bhamla, S., Chang, F., Dinner, A., and Maienschein, J.), Schematic of Different Ways Magnetic Beads Can Move in Cells, Digital media, 2021.
  4. Guerrero, Anna Clemencia, The Cyborg Cell Group, Digital media, 2021.
  5. ProteoCell Team (Noireaux, V., Sullivan, M., Ghirlanda, G., Keating, C., Harthorn, B. H., Kerfeld, C. A.), Conceptual Diagram of Team Goals, Digital media, 2021. .
  6. SynCell group (Carothers, J., Chen, I., Frow, E., Lakin, M. & Peralta-Yayha, P.) Conceptual Diagram of Group Goals, Digital media, 2021. (Appears in 2019 NSF award 1935087: Synthetic cells that can learn without evolution.)