Post #3542588
2026-07-02 14:08 UTC
#SpudCell is an impressive technological achievement, but NOT a living cell:
https://biotic.org/research/spudcell
It does not have a proper metabolism.
Instead, it is "fed" liposomes whose lipids lead to membrane growth and "food" that includes pre-synthesized ribosomes & enzymes.
It suffers an error catastrophe after less than five "generations." So: not really "reproducing" (no sustained completion of the life cycle).
The authors know that. But "synthetic cell" sounds good for marketing, I guess.
Replies (1)
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@yoginho@spore.social 2026-07-02 14:10
I'm immediately reminded of the dire wolf that was NOT a dire wolf. Or Venter's "synthetic" cell, that was just an existing bacterium with an engineered genome. All really impressive technological feats, don't get me wrong. And in some ways probably useful to understand how life works, though it's not clear to me right now in what way. But none of these achievements are anywhere near creating actual synthetic life.