Descrizione del progetto
Una nuova via verso la vita sintetica e una svolta per la chimica
Un obiettivo da lungo tempo agognato dal mondo dell’ingegneria e da quello della chimica è la creazione della vita sintetica. Tuttavia, gli esperti di entrambi i campi si sono trovati ad affrontare numerosi ostacoli. La maggiore difficoltà consisteva nella realizzazione di sistemi realistici che fossero in grado di prendere decisioni autonome, percepire l’ambiente circostante ed estrarre da quest’ultimo l’energia e le risorse necessarie per stimolare la crescita e la divisione delle cellule (tutti processi controllati dalle reti di reazioni enzimatiche). Il progetto Life-Inspired, finanziato dall’UE, intende costruire sistemi ispirati alla vita e incentrati sulla struttura della materiale vivente. A tale scopo, il progetto si concentrerà sulla produzione di una serie di sistemi complessi basati su reti di reazioni enzimatiche programmabili.
Obiettivo
Many of the key functions typically associated with living systems, including sensing of the environment, autonomous decision making, and extracting energy and building blocks from the environment for cell growth and division, are all governed by enzymatic reaction networks. Constructing synthetic systems that capture some of these capabilities, i.e. life-inspired systems, would represent a truly disruptive development, as they challenge our notion of what differentiates living systems from synthetic, man-made devices. However, the ability create synthetic life-inspired systems remains an elusive goal. Despite impressive progress in systems chemistry, no clear engineering principles or methodologies exist for the bottom-up construction of functional complex molecular systems The translation of the design principles of living systems into programmable and functional life-inspired systems is one of the outstanding grand challenge in chemistry. The ultimate aim of this proposal is to construct life-inspired systems based on the design blueprints of living matter To achieve this aim, I propose a key breakthrough by presenting a completely new approach to functional complex systems based on programmable enzymatic reactions networks. The envisaged approach is modular and will allow for systematic increases in complexity. The core objectives of this proposal are: - establish a completely new approach to programmable enzymatic reaction networks - compartmentalize network motifs, and separate the small molecule ‘software’ from the enzyme ‘hardware’ - demonstrate modularity and increase the complexity via communication between compartments - develop robust methods to manage the maintenance of non-equilibrium conditions - design and construct complex life-inspired systems.
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Meccanismo di finanziamento
ERC-ADG - Advanced GrantIstituzione ospitante
6525 XZ Nijmegen
Paesi Bassi