Some folks are working on a way to manufacture cellular life. At the moment their goal is to create a life form that can stay alive for a few hours. The experiments at ProtoLife in Venice Italy have been able to produce several parts of a working cell, including vesicles apparently (which I am inferring from the attached picture). Although later on in the article Jack Szostak at Harvard Medical School claims that the next step is to create a cellular membrane. This is a little confusing -- I can't remember exactly from my biology class, but I thought vesicles were little hunks of proto-membranes that were used by the cell to create and maintain the cell membrane. Perhaps they haven't been able to get the vesicles to form together into a full membrane, or perhaps there is an intermediate process that the vesicles need to go through in order to become a full on membrane. Of course, ProtoType believes that the next step is to get a functioning genetic system. Perhaps ProtoType envisions using a 'genetic' system to organize and control the vesicles for the formation of complete membranes.

The challenges for creating artificial life were nicely summarized by Mr. Bornstein from the AP

• A container, or membrane, for the cell to keep bad molecules out, allow good ones, and the ability to multiply.
• A genetic system that controls the functions of the cell, enabling it to reproduce and mutate in response to environmental changes.
• A metabolism that extracts raw materials from the environment as food and then changes it into energy.

Bookmark/Search this post with:

delicious | digg | reddit | furl | technorati