Synthetic living machines: A new window on life | Hacker News Reader

Synthetic living machines: A new window on life

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81 pointsAnon8410 comments

I believe this century we'll see a kind of Cambrian explosion of life on our planet. Dinos and Unicorns, but also new more practical species like special plants and trees for construction materials.

Maybe Silicon-based nano machines are more adaptable in other planets environments, but here on Earth, Carbon based nano robots (living cells) is what evolved first naturally and what we will improve/change very first time quite soon.

We are very very far from doing anything large scale with these sort of technologies. Most of the research mentioned in the paper either cannot self replicate or requires significant external manipulation to do anything useful (think EM fields, sound waves). They are pretty typical for biomedical engineering, they are not some major advancement in the realm of science fiction.

The innovations mentioned are a good start but it is unclear whether the current lines of research (bottom up engineering of a cell via chemically engineering a cell membrane) will bear fruit. They have some applications in carefully controlled environments like for medicine but the technology itself would not directly lead to the resurrection of dinosaurs. The infamous xenobots are basically overhyped. They primarily rely on biophysics simulations to find candidates "bots" that are made by gluing together muscle cells. This is very far from how traditional biology works. I know this forum is obsessed with bioelectricity and the research came from the same labs but in terms of practical applications it is highly doubtful there will be any unless it can be combined with other technology.

For true synthetic life, look into minimal cell projects that start by reducing the number of genes in a cell to a minimal number required for self replication (very similar to a program reducer in CS). Other efforts would involve replacing the traditional DNA ATCG nucleotides with other types of nucleotides. The Central Dogma is called the Central Dogma for a very good reason.

While I profoundly disagree with the claims made by the paper with regards to xenobots and similar biomedical engineering gimmicks, the rest of the overview is quite sound, especially the areas on genetic circuits and organoids.

> requires significant external manipulation to do anything useful

It seems like artificial metabolic pathways research needs to be an area where boundaries are pushed. It would be fairly useful because it would generalize energy research as well.

> start by reducing the number of genes

Top down is status quo synth-bio. But, I found it interesting that the new mRNA vaccines used the lipid nanoparticle delivery mechanisms. It seems to be a sort of an early success for bottom-up synth-bio.

> Central Dogma for a very good reason.

Which is why there are two approaches to "life". 1. what is for all practical purposes, further variations on existing biology 2. a much more profound and general definition of what "life" even is, and the ability to generate lifeforms (whatever that may mean) from just about anything - which may or may not require anything analogous to the central dogma.

Mark my words, the day will come when we can grow our computers. Caring for your systems and networks will be a biological affair. Synthetic biology is at the stage of creating a transistor; the biological equivalent of a 8086 will be the next step, and one I have no doubt will be reached in my lifetime.

Yes, and one day we will have biological "cars" that can behave autonomously, avoid collisions, climb hills, cross shallow rivers, pull storage carts behind them, operate on simple grass consumption, be used in battle, and generate new cars through a cheap replication process. The technology of the future will be insane.

H0RS3 by uber.

We used to grow our computers. "Computer" was a job title.

The wiki article, if anyone is interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_(job_description)

I might be naive, but Michael Levin[1] is the type of scientist I imagine when I think of the revolutionary scientists of the past. It's quite refreshing to see such bold initiatives being undertaken.

I'm curious to see who others see in a similar light, and what they're working on.

[1] https://wyss.harvard.edu/team/associate-faculty/michael-levi...

When will I be able to grow myself a new body of the opposite sex? A long time it seems. But I very much think this is the right direction of travel. Observing tissues and then trying to model them in silicon is useful, but to really grok this you have to tinker around and engineer tissues yourself. Magical and wondrous medical technology awaits us in this direction. Crack the bio-electric and chemotaxis code and you improve human life immeasurably. God speed to the small band of people working in this area.

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