Life-like systems need to maintain a basal metabolism, which includes importing a variety of
building blocks required for macromolecule synthesis, exporting dead-end products, and …

Cell-free gene expression (CFE) systems empower synthetic biologists to build biological
molecules and processes outside of living intact cells. The foundational principle is that …

Bacteriophages constitute an invaluable biological reservoir for biotechnology and
medicine. The ability to exploit such vast resources is hampered by the lack of methods to …

Gene-expressing compartments assembled from simple, modular parts, are a versatile
platform for creating minimal synthetic cells with life-like functions. By incorporating gene …

Artificial cells are biomimetic structures formed from molecular building blocks that replicate
biological processes, behaviors, and architectures. Of these building blocks, hydrogels have …

The field of soft matter physics has expanded rapidly over the past several decades, as
physicists realize that a broad set of materials and systems are amenable to a physical …

In the past decade, the focus of bottom-up synthetic biology has shifted from the design of
complex artificial cell architectures to the design of interactions between artificial cells …

A molecular robot, which is a system comprised of one or more molecular machines and
computers, can execute sophisticated tasks in many fields that span from nanomedicine to …

Compartments within living cells create specialized microenvironments, allowing multiple
reactions to be carried out simultaneously and efficiently. While some organelles are bound …

Membrane fusion is a ubiquitous phenomenon linked to many biological processes, and
represents a crucial step in liposome-based drug delivery strategies. The ability to control …