Project description
Creating synthetic life from artificial molecules
Life is a mystery, and synthetic life holds the potential to provide insights into its origins and existence elsewhere. Additionally, it can facilitate the creation of new materials and catalysts. Can we synthesise life? The ERC-funded SynLife project seeks to answer this question by synthesising life from artificial molecules, using chemically fuelled droplets as self-sustaining compartments. The project aims to develop self-replicating molecules capable of mutating and partitioning within these droplets, thereby acquiring an identity. If successful, this endeavour will establish a synthetic system capable of Darwinian evolution, representing a significant advancement in our comprehension of life. Furthermore, the outcomes will have ramifications for the biophysics community and revolutionise material design by incorporating Darwinian evolution as a manufacturing tool.
Objective
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?
SynLife aims to synthesize life from man-made molecules following NASA’s definition:Life is a self-sustaining system capable of Darwinian evolution.
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. 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. Moreover, 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.
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.
The results will mark a massive step forwards 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. 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.
But, most excitingly, SynLife will change how we think of material design by introducing Darwinian evolution as a manufacturing tool.
Fields of science
Keywords
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC GrantsHost institution
80333 Muenchen
Germany