Orangutan 😂

Associate Professors Kate Adamala and Aaron Engelhart and their teams at the College of Biological Sciences have developed the world’s first synthetic cell with a complete life cycle, built entirely from non-living chemical components, and described it in a new paper. The project, called SpudCell, marks a major breakthrough in biological engineering. In time, it may provide solutions to some of our most challenging problems in medicine and engineering.
Among the characteristics of SpudCell:
Replicates a biological cell’s life cycle: SpudCell is capable of selection, genome replication, growth, resource acquisition via feeding, and genetically encoded division.
Cell division without a cytoskeleton: Natural cells divide using internal scaffolding called a cytoskeleton, which has been a bottleneck in synthetic cell research. SpudCell sidesteps the need for a cytoskeleton with proteins that crowd together on the membrane surface until the mechanical stress makes the membrane split.
Selection and competition: Researchers introduced a genetic change that increased production of the fusion protein, resulting in cells that grew faster and produced more offspring. After five generations, the faster-growing variant had outcompeted the original. Under nutrient scarcity, the advantage increased, demonstrating selection and competition operating in a fully synthetic chemical system.

Link to the full article: twin-cities.umn.edu/news-events/worlds-first-synthetic-cell-complete-life-cycle-could-revolutionize-biological

Abstract:

Cells are the fundamental unit of life. Yet there is no natural cell for which all its life-essential functions are understood. Here we demonstrate a complete cell cycle for a synthetic cell undergoing selection, with genome replication, growth, resource acquisition via feeding, and genetically encoded division. The cell is encoded via a 90kb genome that includes functions needed for resource uptake, transcription, translation, growth, genome replication, and division. The resulting synthetic cell is sufficiently encouraging to support routinization of synthetic cell engineering workflows, and will ultimately underlie diverse applications across all of biotechnology.

Link to the full paper: biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.07.01.735724v1