Synthetic cell divides and copies its own DNA

A team led by Kate Adamala at the University of Minnesota constructed tiny lipid bubbles, called liposomes (vesicles made of fat molecules), filled with circular DNA. These artificial cells can divide and pass their genetic information to new generations. After five generations, thirty percent of the bubbles still contained the original DNA.

What the cell can and cannot do

The synthetic cells are fully chemically defined: there are no unknown components. That makes them fundamentally different from any known biological cell, but also uniquely useful as a research tool. The researchers stressed that the systems must be fed a specific enzyme and that their food must itself be packaged in other liposomes. They are therefore not fully self-sustaining.

Whether these structures can be considered ‘alive’ is a matter of scientific debate. They exhibit cell-like properties but are not identical to cells in nature. The creators have deliberately taken an open approach, establishing a public benefit corporation to share the technology with other researchers.

Relevance to medicine and aging research

The synthesis of functional cell-like systems opens up possibilities for drug delivery, testing biological processes and understanding how life first arose. For aging research, the ability to study cellular processes in a fully controlled environment is interesting. Researchers could test how specific molecular mechanisms contribute to cell division, DNA copying errors or aging, without the noise of a fully biological system.

This is early-stage research. But the combination of self-replication and a fully defined chemical composition makes this approach unique in synthetic biology.

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