On Biochemical Constructors and Synthetic Cells
Cell-free synthetic biology emerged as a viable in vitro alternative for biological network engineering. Cell-free synthetic biology implements biological systems in a coupled transcription – translation reaction and therefore is a well-defined environment that is easier to control and interrogate than complex cellular systems. I will discuss several technological and methodological advances including the development of microfluidic chemostat devices, a high-throughput microfluidic device, and a method to easily produce a recombinant cell-free system. With these tools we were able to rapidly prototype genetic networks and transplant them into living hosts and engineered gene regulatory networks from the bottom-up with synthetic Zinc-finger transcriptional regulators. More recently, we were able to demonstrate that it is possible to create a partially self-regenerating cell-free system that continuously produces up to seven essential proteins and does so for an extended period of time. This work lays the foundation for the development of a universal biochemical constructor and may ultimately enable the creation of a synthetic cell.