Building a Synthetic Cell via Evolution

Abstract: Our group is engaged in the long-term effort to build an entire living cell using a bottom-up synthetic biology approach. We envision the chassis of a synthetic cell as a reconstituted gene expression system, called PURE system, encapsulated inside a lipid vesicle compartment. Our latest results on synthetic genome assembly, DNA replication, phospholipid biosynthesis, and liposome constriction will be presented. Moreover, we will see how directed evolution can accelerate the optimization and functional integration of these biological modules. The challenges to create an autonomously replicating synthetic cell and the great opportunities that may arise by using automated experimentation and active learning, will finally be discussed.

Bio: I was trained in chemistry and physics at the University of Toulouse, France. After a PhD in biophysics at the Institute of Pharmacology and Structural Biology in Toulouse (2003) and a post-doctoral stay at the EPFL Lausanne, Switzerland, I started my lab at the TU Delft, Netherlands, in 2010. My group pioneered experiments in the reconstitution of DNA-programmed cellular functions, such as DNA replication, membrane synthesis, and liposome constriction. In 2023, I relocated my lab at the Toulouse Biotechnology Institute, France. Our Synthetic Cell Lab (danelonlab.com) is engineering synthetic genomes and is developing new technologies for continuous evolution of synthetic cells using AI (active learning) and lab automation.

Host: Nadanai Laohakunakorn