{"id":673739,"date":"2026-07-04T17:26:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-04T17:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/673739\/"},"modified":"2026-07-04T17:26:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T17:26:10","slug":"synthetic-cell-grows-divides-for-the-first-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/673739\/","title":{"rendered":"Synthetic cell grows, divides for the first time"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A synthetic cell built from scratch \u2014 no living components, just liposomes, DNA, and 36 commercial enzymes standing in for protein synthesis \u2014 grew, copied its own DNA, and split into two, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.quantamagazine.org\/for-the-first-time-a-cell-built-from-scratch-grows-and-divides-20260701\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Quanta&#8217;s report on this synthetic-cell milestone<\/a>: the first time researchers have watched an artificial cell complete a full division cycle. Kate Adamala&#8217;s lab at the University of Minnesota triggered the split by borrowing a trick from physicist Reinhard Lipowsky \u2014 attaching protein tags to the membrane that draw in other proteins, crowd together, and bend the membrane until it pinches in two.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The cell can&#8217;t survive on its own; it needs a constant outside supply of ribosomes and raw materials, and it has no genes for producing its own energy. Adamala compared the milestone to early aviation: &#8220;We built a Wright flyer \u2026 the first bike frame with wings.&#8221; J. Craig Venter Institute biologist John Glass called it &#8220;a watershed event for the synthetic-cell field,&#8221; and chemist Sijbren Otto called it &#8220;a big step forward to this holy grail of making a living thing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Previously:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A synthetic cell built from scratch \u2014 no living components, just liposomes, DNA, and 36 commercial enzymes standing&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":673740,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[4911,59,225314,90,16710,56,54,55,15964],"class_list":["post-673739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-biology","tag-gb","tag-origins-of-life","tag-science","tag-synthetic-biology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-university-of-minnesota"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=673739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673739\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/673740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=673739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=673739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=673739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}