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Scientists in Europe have begun working on a project to create simple life forms from scratch in the laboratory, taking advantage of theoretical and experimental advances in the burgeoning field of synthetic biology.
Starting from inanimate chemicals, the researchers aim to create metabolically active cells that will grow and divide within six years, exhibiting “Darwinian evolution.”
The 13 million euro “MiniLife” project European Research Council Biologists and chemists from several universities are participating in the project, which could be the first in the world to reach minimum standards for artificial living systems.
“Success would be a breakthrough in basic science,” said Airs Zatmary, director of the Center for Basic Sciences. Parmenides Foundation He is a principal investigator on an ERC grant in Germany. “De novo creation of living systems is a long-standing dream of humankind.”
John Sutherland, who studies the chemistry of early life at the MRC Molecular Biology Laboratory in Cambridge, said the project joins a growing effort around the world to “create minimal living systems.” said.
Sutherland, who is not involved in the MiniLife project, said: “This will help us understand how life originated on Earth and whether it could have originated elsewhere in the observable universe.” It is driven by a long-standing desire to do so.”
Other artificial life researchers study the known building blocks of life on Earth, particularly the nucleotides that make up ribonucleic acid. In contrast, the ERC project aims to truly start from scratch, without using molecules that are themselves the product of evolution.
“The known life forms are highly evolved creatures, so we abstract from that and simplify to arrive at a minimal formulation,” Zatomary said.
MiniLife researchers are evaluating four systems that could be developed, individually or in combination, as the basis for minimal living. All of these are “autocatalytic,” a property essential for self-replication, in which chemical reactions are catalyzed by their own products.
One of the candidates is formose reaction. Discovered in the 19th century, this process converts formaldehyde, a very simple chemical, into a series of increasingly diverse and complex sugar molecules. When formaldehyde is supplied to the reaction, the behavior of the droplet changes depending on the composition of the sugars within it.
“Some grow faster and divide faster than others,” says Andrew Griffiths, a minilife researcher at the École Sapeleur de Physique et de Kimy Industrielle in Paris. “Eventually, the biological equivalent of fitness will emerge in very simple chemical systems, such as mixtures of slow-growing and fast-growing bacteria.”
Formose-based systems must be able to demonstrate reliable heritability, perhaps in combination with one of the other systems being evaluated. That is, it must be possible to pass on the acquired characteristics from one generation to the next.
The six-year timing is ambitious, Griffiths said, and he is optimistic that the project will be able to “demonstrate a rudimentary Darwinian theory of evolution.” At a minimum, you will need a system that can switch between two genetic states in different environments. This is similar to the famous pepper moth’s feathers, which are white in clean environments and turn black when they live in polluted areas with dark surfaces.
Sigibreen Otto, professor of systems chemistry at the University of Groningen and another member of the MiniLife team, said his main motivation was “an interest in the nature and origin of life.” Although the molecules we develop are probably not the ones where life began on pre-biological Earth 3.8 billion years ago, the mechanisms we hope to uncover will help us understand what happened back then. is very important. ”
Last month, an international group of researchers warned of “unprecedented risks” posed by another field of synthetic biology. They said “mirror life” – artificial bacteria that mirror the structure of natural microorganisms – could overwhelm the defenses of humans, other animals and plants.
Asked about the safety of the MiniLife project, Otto said the work was “very unlikely to be viable outside of a very controlled laboratory environment” and posed no risk to the public. said.
However, the team is working with experts to develop an ethical framework for the research. “Now is the time to think further ahead about where research is headed,” Otto said.
