A roadmap toward the synthesis of life

<h2>Summary</h2> The synthesis of life from non-living matter has captivated and divided scientists for centuries. This bold goal aims at unraveling the fundamental principles of life and leveraging its unique features, such as its resilience, sustainability, and ability to evolve. Synthetic life represents more than an academic milestone—it has the potential to revolutionize biotechnology, medicine, and materials science. Although the fields of synthetic biology, systems chemistry, and biophysics have made great strides toward synthetic life, progress has been hindered by social, philosophical, and technical challenges, such as vague goals, misaligned interdisciplinary efforts, and incompletely addressing public and ethical concerns. Our perspective offers a roadmap toward the synthesis of life based on discussions during a 2-week workshop with scientists from around the globe.

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Publication Details

Journal
Chem
Published
2025-02-06
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chempr.2024.102399
Citations
25
Primary Topic
Origins and Evolution of Life
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
28.87

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article

A roadmap toward the synthesis of life

Ivar S. Haugerud, Shelley F. J. Wickham, Erik Poppleton, Wojciech P. Lipiński et al.
25 citations
Chem
Origins and Evolution of Life
28.87
article

A roadmap toward the synthesis of life

Ivar S. Haugerud, Shelley F. J. Wickham, Erik Poppleton, Wojciech P. Lipiński, Olga Bantysh, Brigitte A. K. Kriebisch, Thomas C. T. Michaels, Gregor Häfner, Alisdair Stevenson, Job Boekhoven, Sijbren Otto, Mai Khanh Tran, Eva Bertosin, Sadaf Javed, Shuzo Kato, Dieter Braun, Hailin Fu, Maria Guix, Merlijn H. I. van Haren, Christoph A. Weber, Alexander Ruf, Andrea Belluati, Nadanai Laohakunakorn, Christine M. E. Kriebisch, Hidde Derk Vuijk, Michele Stasi, Pranay Jaiswal, Iris B. A. Smokers, Lorena Baranda Pellejero, Héctor Soria‐Carrera, Wilhelm T. S. Huck, Alessandro Sorrenti, Ebbe Sloth Andersen, Julianne M. Gibbs, Ashkan Karimi, Pablo Zambrano, Ulrich Gerland, Erwin Frey, Claudia Bonfio, Sudarshana Laha, Karen Alim, Thomas Matreux, Katarzyna P. Adamala, James Sáenz, Frank Jülicher, Kerstin Göpfrich, Cenk Onur Gürdap, Nicola Galvanetto, Petra Schwille, Alessandra Griffo, Samuel Santhosh Gomez, Annemiek D. Slootbeek, Gaetano Granatelli, Johannes Harth-Kitzerow, Maria de Roy, Pao-Wan Lee, Kun Dai, Advait Thatte, L. Mahadavan
article en
25 citations

Abstract

<h2>Summary</h2> The synthesis of life from non-living matter has captivated and divided scientists for centuries. This bold goal aims at unraveling the fundamental principles of life and leveraging its unique features, such as its resilience, sustainability, and ability to evolve. Synthetic life represents more than an academic milestone—it has the potential to revolutionize biotechnology, medicine, and materials science. Although the fields of synthetic biology, systems chemistry, and biophysics have made great strides toward synthetic life, progress has been hindered by social, philosophical, and technical challenges, such as vague goals, misaligned interdisciplinary efforts, and incompletely addressing public and ethical concerns. Our perspective offers a roadmap toward the synthesis of life based on discussions during a 2-week workshop with scientists from around the globe.

ChemVol. 11(3)
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR), The University of Sydney (AU), University of Minnesota (US), Kyushu University (JP), Radboud University Nijmegen (NL), University of Alberta (CA), University of Freiburg (DE), University of Applied Sciences Mainz (DE), University of Groningen (NL), University of Augsburg (DE), University of Strathclyde (GB), Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (DE), ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences (CH), University of Zurich (CH), Aarhus University (DK), Heidelberg University (DE), Center for NanoScience (DE), Karolinska Institutet (SE), LMU Klinikum (DE), Technische Universität Darmstadt (DE), ETH Zurich (CH), Max Planck Institute for Medical Research (DE), Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization (DE), Institut de Science et d'Ingénierie Supramoléculaires (FR), Excellence Cluster Origins (DE), Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics (DE), Evolutionary Genomics (United States) (US), Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems (DE), Life Science Zurich (CH), Center for Systems Biology Dresden (DE), Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry (DE), Max Planck School Matter to Life, Institut de Nanociència i Nanotecnologia de la Universitat de Barcelona, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (CH), Technical University of Munich (DE), Universitat de Barcelona (ES), University of Göttingen (DE), Technische Universität Dresden (DE), Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (DE), Eindhoven University of Technology (NL), Delft University of Technology (NL), University of Edinburgh (GB)
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
Zero hunger
Openalex Percentile: Top 0%
Origins and Evolution of Life
28.87
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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