Building a community to engineer synthetic cells and organelles from the bottom-up

• DOI: 10.7554/elife.73556
• Publication Date: 2021-12-20T13:02:16Z
• Authors: Oskar Staufer; Jacqueline A De Lora; Eleonora Bailoni; Alisina Bazrafshan; Amelie S Benk; Kevin Jahnke; Zachary A Manzer; Lado Otrin; Telmo Díez Pérez; Judee Sharon; Jan Steinkühler; Katarzyna P Adamala; Bruna Jacobson; Marileen Dogterom; Kerstin Göpfrich; Darko Stefanovic; Susan R Atlas; Michael Grunze; Matthew R Lakin; Andrew P Shreve; Joachim P Spatz; Gabriel P López
• Keywords: Synthetic Biology

Employing concepts from physics, chemistry and bioengineering, 'learning-by-building' approaches are becoming increasingly popular in the life sciences, especially with researchers who attempting to engineer cellular scratch. The SynCell2020/21 conference brought together different disciplines highlight progress this field, including areas where synthetic cells having socioeconomic technological impact. Conference participants also identified challenges involved designing, manipulating creating hierarchical organization function. A key conclusion is need build an international interdisciplinary research community through enhanced communication, resource-sharing, educational initiatives.