Is Synthetic Biology a Good Idea?

In undergrad in grad school, I did origin of life research. That's like the hardcore astrobiology,. How life started on earth, how life started on other planets. Can we look for life elsewhere? And I know it was a lot of fun, but that was completely absolutely useless from in a practical sense. There is never going to be a drug that's going to come out of origins research.

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What does it mean to be alive? Our origins are the horizon of our understanding, and as with the physical horizon, our approach brings us no closer. The more we learn, the more mysterious it all becomes. What if we’re asking the wrong questions? Maybe life did not begin at all, but rather coalesced piecemeal, a set of properties contingent and convergent, plural, more than once? Maybe the origin of life is happening right now, just over the horizon, forming something new anew. Let’s get into the weeds and see if we can find a continuity between biology and physics.

Welcome to COMPLEXITY, the official podcast of the Santa Fe Institute. I’m your host, Michael Garfield, and every other week we’ll bring you with us for far-ranging conversations with our worldwide network of rigorous researchers developing new frameworks to explain the deepest mysteries of the universe.

This week we speak with Kate Adamala, synthetic biologist and professor at the University of Minnesota, about her research to produce synthetic minimal cells that are not technically alive but can perform myriad biological processes. Along the way the distant past and future meet. Can we build life? Or can we grow machines?

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Podcast theme music by Mitch Mignano.

Referenced in this episode:

Nonenzymatic Template-Directed RNA Synthesis Inside Model Protocells

Engineering genetic circuit interactions within and between synthetic minimal cells

Competition between model protocells driven by an encapsulated catalyst

Synthetic cells in biomedical applications

Parasites, infections and inoculation in synthetic minimal cells

Build-a-Cell: Engineering a Synthetic Cell Community

The Andromeda Strain and the Meaning of Life: Monolith Monologues

Sara Walker on The Physics of Life and Planet-Scale Intelligence