Synthetic biology

Benner, Steven A.; Sismour, A. Michael

doi:10.1038/nrg1637

Cited by 764 publications

(528 citation statements)

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“…T he construction of an artificial cell or model protocell is hypothesized to provide important insights into the emergence of life from an assembly of non-living molecules 1,2 , the basic principles that underlie biological functions [3][4][5] and the production of new technology 6,7 . To date, several cellular functions have been reconstructed using simple compounds, such as fatty acids, that may have existed during the prebiotic era [8][9][10][11][12] .…”

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confidence: 99%

Darwinian evolution in a translation-coupled RNA replication system within a cell-like compartment

et al. 2013

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The ability to evolve is a key characteristic that distinguishes living things from non-living chemical compounds. The construction of an evolvable cell-like system entirely from non-living molecules has been a major challenge. Here we construct an evolvable artificial cell model from an assembly of biochemical molecules. The artificial cell model contains artificial genomic RNA that replicates through the translation of its encoded RNA replicase. We perform a long-term (600-generation) replication experiment using this system, in which mutations are spontaneously introduced into the RNA by replication error, and highly replicable mutants dominate the population according to Darwinian principles. During evolution, the genomic RNA gradually reinforces its interaction with the translated replicase, thereby acquiring competitiveness against selfish (parasitic) RNAs. This study provides the first experimental evidence that replicating systems can be developed through Darwinian evolution in a cell-like compartment, even in the presence of parasitic replicators.

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confidence: 99%

Darwinian evolution in a translation-coupled RNA replication system within a cell-like compartment

et al. 2013

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“…The latter meant that animals (La Mettrie included humans) are based entirely on material substance, without any immaterial soul, exactly as we know it in machines. In other words, there is no difference between biological and mechanical processes, all of them are based 4 Rational design in the unnatural molecular biology approach could for instance be applied for the development of alternative genetic codes, to design HNA or GNA nucleotides (Schmidt 2010) or alternative nucleobases (Benner and Sismour 2005). on physical laws. Bioengineers on the other hand want to turn biology into an engineering discipline, they want to introduce engineering and a rational design into biotechnology (Andrianantoandro et al 2006;Heinemann and Panke 2006).…”

Section: Synthetic Biologists Want To Modify Life By a Rational Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Conception of Life in Synthetic Biology

Deplazes‐Zemp

2011

Sci Eng Ethics

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The phrase 'synthetic biology' is used to describe a set of different scientific and technological disciplines, which share the objective to design and produce new life forms. This essay addresses the following questions: What conception of life stands behind this ambitious objective? In what relation does this conception of life stand to that of traditional biology and biotechnology? And, could such a conception of life raise ethical concerns? Three different observations that provide useful indications for the conception of life in synthetic biology will be discussed in detail: 1. Synthetic biologists focus on different features of living organisms in order to design new life forms, 2. Synthetic biologists want to contribute to the understanding of life, and 3. Synthetic biologists want to modify life through a rational design, which implies the notions of utilising, minimising/optimising, varying and overcoming life. These observations indicate a tight connection between science and technology, a focus on selected aspects of life, a production-oriented approach to life, and a design-oriented understanding of life. It will be argued that through this conception of life synthetic biologists present life in a different light. This conception of life will be illustrated by the metaphor of a toolbox. According to the notion of life as a toolbox, the different features of living organisms are perceived as various rationally designed instruments that can be used for the production of the living organism itself or secondary products made by the organism. According to certain ethical positions this conception of life might raise ethical concerns related to the status of the organism, the motives of the scientists and the role of technology in our society. Synthetic biologists want to modify life through a rational design, which implies the notions of utilising, minimising/optimising, varying and overcoming life.These observations indicate a tight connection between science and technology, a focus on selected aspects of life, a production-oriented approach to life, and a designoriented understanding of life. It will be argued that through this conception of life synthetic biologists present life in a different light. This conception of life will be illustrated by the metaphor of a toolbox. According to the notion of life as a toolbox, the different features of living organisms are perceived as various rationally designed instruments that can be used for the production of the living organism itself or secondary products made by the organism. According to certain ethical positions this conception of life might raise ethical concerns related to the status of the organism, the motives of the scientists and the role of technology in our society.

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“…To study how complexity at each stage arises and what is required to see transitions between stages, we could adopt the synthetic method, which is being used increasingly in many scientific fields, particularly biology [4], but also fields studying culturally evolving systems, such as sociology [5] or archaeology [6]. This method suggests that we should build operational models that generate analogous behaviours to those observed in the natural system we want to understand, similar to the way an aeroplane can be said to exhibit a similar capacity to fly as birds and hence informs us about what it takes to fly.…”

Section: Stages In Language Evolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Agent-based models for the emergence and evolution of grammar

Steels¹

2016

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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One contribution of 13 to a theme issue 'The major synthetic evolutionary transitions'.Subject Areas: computational biology, evolution Keywords: language evolution, grammaticalization, emergence of grammar, fluid construction grammar, agent-based models, major transitions in evolution Author for correspondence: Luc Steels e-mail: steels@arti.vub.ac.be Agent-based models for the emergence and evolution of grammar Luc Steels ICREA, IBE-Universitat Pompeu Fabra and CSIC, 08003 Barcelona, Spain LS, 0000-0001-9134-3663Human languages are extraordinarily complex adaptive systems. They feature intricate hierarchical sound structures, are able to express elaborate meanings and use sophisticated syntactic and semantic structures to relate sound to meaning. What are the cognitive mechanisms that speakers and listeners need to create and sustain such a remarkable system? What is the collective evolutionary dynamics that allows a language to self-organize, become more complex and adapt to changing challenges in expressive power? This paper focuses on grammar. It presents a basic cycle observed in the historical language record, whereby meanings move from lexical to syntactic and then to a morphological mode of expression before returning to a lexical mode, and discusses how we can discover and validate mechanisms that can cause these shifts using agent-based models.This article is part of the themed issue 'The major synthetic evolutionary transitions'. Stages in language evolutionA human language is a remarkable, highly complex communication system. The capacity for language, the so-called language-ready brain [1], uniquely emerged in the hominin species, perhaps being in place as far back as half a million years ago [2]. Since then, languages have been born, and existing languages have kept changing, diversifying and dying. How can we develop a scientific understanding of the emergence and continuous cultural evolution of such a highly complex system? Analogous to a successful strategy in evolutionary biology [3], we could postulate different stages for the emergence of language in a population with language-ready brains, based on criteria related to the complexity of the meanings that can be conveyed and the complexity of the structures and linguistic forms available to express them.To study how complexity at each stage arises and what is required to see transitions between stages, we could adopt the synthetic method, which is being used increasingly in many scientific fields, particularly biology [4], but also fields studying culturally evolving systems, such as sociology [5] or archaeology [6]. This method suggests that we should build operational models that generate analogous behaviours to those observed in the natural system we want to understand, similar to the way an aeroplane can be said to exhibit a similar capacity to fly as birds and hence informs us about what it takes to fly. In the case of language, the operational models take the form of a population of artificial agents which are initialized with a set of ...

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Synthetic biology

Cited by 764 publications

References 97 publications

Darwinian evolution in a translation-coupled RNA replication system within a cell-like compartment

Darwinian evolution in a translation-coupled RNA replication system within a cell-like compartment

The Conception of Life in Synthetic Biology

Agent-based models for the emergence and evolution of grammar

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