Regensburg 2025 – scientific programme

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PSV: Plenary Special Talks

PSV IV

PSV IV: Ceremonial Talk

Tuesday, March 18, 2025, 16:00–18:00, H1

How to build a biological cell from scratch — •Petra Schwille — MPI of Biochemistry, Martinsried

Researchers at the interface of biology with the quantitative sciences, like physics and chemistry, have in the past years been pursuing a new approach towards a fundamental understanding of living systems, termed ``bottom-up synthetic biology''. The underlying idea is that only a radical simplification and abstraction of a biological cell will allow us to decipher the distinctive features of life, because even the simplest life forms on earth have accumulated a huge degree of redundancy, in order to remain viable in a hostile and competitive environment. Thus, in order to arrive at a self-sustaining minimal reaction system with the ability to replicate and evolve - a minimal living system - we likely need to build it from scratch. I will show how the bottom-up assembly of a minimal functional machinery accomplishes the spontaneous division of a vesicle-based artificial cell. Important functions that we have successfully reconstituted in a minimal model system include autonomous assembly, positioning, and contraction of a minimal division ring.

Keywords: Biophysics; Artificial Cell; Membranes