The Role of DNA in the Fine Tuning of the Universe

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I don't think there is anything special about ATP, I think it just happened to be around and we started using it. So the other special thing then is the rep on the replication side, we use DNA, right? DNA and RNA are both involved. And then like you said, the ribosome tells the RNA or actually takes the RNA in and makes proteins. It would be clear once we find a completely independent life forms. If we find, let's say, 27 different life forms all over the universe and they all use ATP, then there's definitely something about ATP.

Scientists can’t quite agree on how to define “life,” but that hasn’t stopped them from studying it, looking for it elsewhere, or even trying to create it. Kate Adamala is one of a number of scientists engaged in the ambitious project of trying to create living cells, or something approximating them, starting from entirely non-living ingredients. Impressive progress has already been made. Designing cells from scratch will have obvious uses is biology and medicine, but also allow us to build biological robots and computers, as well as helping us understand how life could have arisen in the first place, and what it might look like on other planets.

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Katarzyna (Kate) Adamala received her Ph.D. working with Pier Luigi Luisi at the University of Rome and Jack Szostak at Harvard. She is currently an assistant professor of Genetics, Cell Biology, and Development at the University of Minnesota. She is a member of the Build-A-Cell international collaboration, which brings together multiple groups to work on constructing artificial life.

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