Biotic

A prototype cell partly capable of replicating itself has been created using 36 existing bacterial genes, but it's not really a living organism – yet #Echobox=1783299124" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">newscientist.com/article/253268…

Why we made @Bioticorg. I believe biology today stands roughly where construction and civil engineering stood 300 years ago. That needs to change. A Thread 🧵

Sloan grantee Kate Adamala of @UMNews was highlighted in @nytimes, @TheEconomist, @CNN, and other outlets for her work to build the world's first synthetic cell with a complete lifecycle. Read more: nytimes.com/interactive/20…

What if you could build a living cell from scratch, part by part, with nothing hidden inside? @KateAdamala's team just did exactly that, and it may change how we engineer biology. For decades, cells have been black boxes. In E. coli, the most studied organism on Earth, a third of its genes still have no confirmed function. You cannot reliably engineer what you do not understand. SpudCell flips that problem. It is a minimal synthetic cell built entirely from defined parts, and every component is known and placed on purpose. It expresses proteins, grows by fusing with feeder liposomes, divides without a cytoskeleton, and even undergoes Darwinian selection. In one experiment a mutated version outcompeted the standard cell within five generations. The team is careful with the language. They call it "constructed rather than created." This is a first prototype, not artificial life, but it is fully defined, and that is the whole point. The bigger vision is a biology engineered the way computers are, in modular layers that anyone can build on. Alongside the work, Adamala and her co-founders launched @Bioticorg, a nonprofit to keep the chassis open so progress across labs finally adds up. Visit the #SynBioBeta website to read the full article: synbiobeta.com/read/the-cell-…

Breaking News: For the first time, researchers have created a cell with most of the hallmarks of life. nyti.ms/3SD2U1K

Researchers at the University of Minnesota have helped create the world's first synthetic cell that can feed, grow and reproduce. Built entirely from non-living chemical components, SpudCell marks a major breakthrough in biological engineering with the potential to transform medicine, manufacturing and more. twin-cities.umn.edu/news-events/wo…

@KateAdamala @UMNews If you work on synthetic cell engineering, or on the chemistry, physics, computation, medicine, policy, or governance around it, come build with us. Read more here: biotic.org/out-of-one-many

@KateAdamala @UMNews The foundations of general-purpose technologies get built once. Who builds them, and in what spirit, determines who benefits for decades after. We are choosing to build these in the open.

Today we're launching Biotic.org: a public-benefit organization building the foundations for engineering biology in the open. 🧵