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

Interesting. I pasted the article URL into Claude Opus 4.8, along with some questions about uses for cells that couldn't reproduce and Claude thought about it for a while, and then got murdered by the guardrails. I was invited to edit the question and try again; in a different chat. Or use a dumber model.

I suppose I can see why. But at the time I was just curious about the idea of "mule" cells.

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...

“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.

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 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.

Human 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 people behind it:

https://biotic.org/

> Biotic is a public-benefit nonprofit research organization developing chemically and functionally defined synthetic cells. Biotic's mission is to responsibly enable and steward foundational advances in bioengineering. Our goal is to ensure that all people and the planet benefit from world‑leading biotechnologies soon enough to matter. We conduct and support public‑benefit research ranging from foundational science to how people interact with biotechnology.

It looks like this particular research is conducted at the University of Minnesota

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.

If anyone is interested in the actual manuscript, here it is: https://www.biotic.org/research/spudcell/spudcell-manuscript...

This is literally how Cell was made. Cell Saga, here we go.

If you read a bit you learn that it's not a cell. Bad title imo.

The wikipedia website to "It's alive" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It's_Alive) lists mostly horror movies. So I'm not sure this is good news.

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

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

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.

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

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!

Craig Venter wanted to do this. But he died earlier this year.

For some reason, research like this has a much more apocalyptic feeling than it has in the past.

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

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

> 'Unlike living natural cells... the synthetic SpudCell can't survive and replicate without feeding on external food and ribosomes'

So in the future when there's a lab leak from the Wuhan Institute of SpudCellular Biology, the SpudCells will devour all biological life they can in order to harvest the building blocks they need. "Just social distance and wear two masks," the Surgeon General tells the CNN correspondent, as he disolves to red gray goo on live TV.

Reminded me of Maturana and his autopoiesis.

I love exciting scientific news like this

"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.

> “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?

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

So what is being described here? Scratch-built self-replicating nano-machines inspired by biology? That itself seems significant.

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

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

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.

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

Uh-oh

[dead]

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