MPI-DS Colloquium: Engineering a synthetic model cell

Today’s living cells emerge from the complex interplay of thousands of molecular constituents. Our vision is to create a simpler model of a cell that consists of a li-pid vesicle and operates based on our own custom-engineered and genetically encoded molecular hardware made from DNA and RNA nanotechnology. Recently, we demonstrated the power of two-photon 3D laser printing for synthetic biolo-gy, realized mechanisms for vesicle division and build functional DNA-based mimics of cytoskeletons, capable of cargo transport and signal transduction. Ul-timately, by coupling GUV division to their informational content and their func-tion, we aim for a prototype of a synthetic cell capable of evolution.