Synthetic Life

Lionhead Studios' Peter Molyneux has shown off a game character that recognizes and responds to a player's mood. The human interaction system is possible with Natal, a system being developed for the Xbox 360. It monitors and reacts precisely to the player's movements and the way they talk. Microsoft demonstrated Natal at the start of the E3 gaming conference in Los Angeles.

In Massachusetts, a young woman makes genetically modified E. coli in a closet she converted into a home lab. A part-time DJ in Berkeley, Calif., works in his attic to cultivate viruses extracted from sewage. In Seattle, a grad-school dropout wants to breed algae in a personal biology lab.

Early applications of synthetic biology may be adequately addressed by the existing regulatory framework for biotechnology, but further advances in this emerging field are likely to create much greater challenges for the U.S. government, according to a new report authored by Michael Rodemeyer of the University of Virginia.

In addition to providing a simple and much less expensive means of making artemisinin, the most powerful anti-malaria drug in use today, synthetic biology can also help to extend the effectiveness of this drug.

Researchers in the field of synthetic biology are still a long way from being able to assemble living cells from scratch in the laboratory. But according to biochemist David Deamer of the University of California, Santa Cruz, their efforts are yielding clues to the mystery of how life began on Earth.

A simple, chemical materials model may lead to a better understanding of the structure and organization of the cell according to a Penn State researcher.

The structure, described February 8 in an advance online publication of the journal Nature, provides fresh insights into the elegant dance that viral proteins perform to create the infectious structure that causes all manner of misery and disease, say researchers.

What has artificial life visionary Steve Grand been up to lately? Quite a lot!

Student participants in the 2008 International Genetically Engineered Machine Competition crafted biological "machines," or living organisms, using original combinations of DNA and other organic material to help tackle environmental and health problems.

Programming biological cells so that they behave like engineering parts is the focus of research at a new UK centre launched today, thanks to an £8 million grant from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and their colleagues have found evidence of ancient climate change on Mars caused by regular variation in the planet's tilt, or obliquity.

Synthetic biology promises to enable cheap, lifesaving new drugs to treat the 350-500 million people who suffer from malaria, and to create innovative biofuels that can help solve the world's energy problems. But the science and its applications are raising questions: Are synthetic biologists playing God?

Bay Area futurists and their fans are gathering Saturday in a coming-of-age celebration for the fledgling field of synthetic biology, which builds living entities from lifeless chemicals.

Synthetic biology is being touted by scientists and venture capitalists as "the next big thing." Researchers claim to be on the brink of creating artificial life in a laboratory and making the world's first synthetic microbes. The first blockbuster synbio drug—an affordable cure for malaria—is expected on the market by 2010. And a whole new biofuels industry spawned by synthetic biologists that promises to conquer the globe's energy problems seems just around the corner.

Researchers at Yale University have created a blueprint for artificial cells that are more powerful and efficient than the natural cells they mimic and could one day be used to power tiny medical implants.