Synthetic Life from the bottom up

Introduction

Life is a mystery, with questions about how it emerged and if it exists elsewhere. Synthetic life can bring us closer to answers to these millennia-old questions. It is also extremely powerful to evolve new materials and catalysts, similar to directed evolution with bacteria. It begs the question, can we synthesize life?

Project Overview

SynLife aims to synthesize life from man-made molecules following NASA’s definition: Life is a self-sustaining system capable of Darwinian evolution.

Mechanism of Action

Chemically fueled droplets will be the self-sustaining compartments. These self-dividing droplets compete for fuel (i.e., food) to thrive and will decay without fuel.

Self-Replicating Molecules

We will develop self-replicating molecules that can mutate and partition inside of these droplets, so the droplets obtain an identity. For example:

• A population of droplets with replicator A differs from a population with replicator B.
• These replicators affect the droplet’s phenotype, for example, by helping division or by offering longevity.

To date, the combination of self-sustaining droplets and replicators has never been achieved.

Competition and Evolution

Finally, populations of droplets compete with each other. In fueling-starvation experiments, it is expected that, from time to time, a droplet mutates into a better-suited one and passes this information on to the next generation. If we reach this ambitious goal, we have produced a synthetic system capable of Darwinian evolution.

Implications of the Research

The results will mark a massive step forward in our understanding of life. It also sheds new light on the molecular mechanisms that may have played a role in the origin of life.

Impact on Biophysics

It will have implications for the biophysics community, too, as our findings help understand how additives to droplets affect their properties, just like in membraneless organelles.

Conclusion

But, most excitingly, SynLife will change how we think of material design by introducing Darwinian evolution as a manufacturing tool.