Aug 31, 2026 · 36 min
Synthetic cells challenge the boundary between chemistry and life
A breakthrough in synthetic life
Cells built from nonliving chemicals could expand biology’s manufacturing potential while forcing new decisions about safety, governance, and access.
- 1Synthetic cells could perform chemical transformations beyond nature’s limited molecular toolkit.
- 2The lab’s “spud cells” can feed, grow, and divide, but lack natural life’s robustness and adaptability.
- 3Turning synthetic biology into a broad bioeconomy will require technical progress, safeguards, and equitable access.
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Kate Adamala explains that her lab-built spud cells can feed, grow, and divide, while questioning whether that makes them alive.
The brief
Synthetic biologist Kate Adamala describes building cells from nonliving chemicals to make materials, drugs, and plastics through transformations natural biology cannot perform.
The project starts with a question about nature’s narrow chemical toolkit: could cells be redesigned with a broader set of molecular components and a more flexible genetic code?
After roughly five or six years of painstaking lab work, Adamala’s team assembled a cell that can take in food, grow, and divide—the episode’s central milestone.
Adamala calls the “spud cells” an early proof of concept, not finished organisms, because they lack natural life’s robustness and adaptability—and science has no universal definition of life.
The promise reaches from a biology-based economy to new medicines and materials, but the path depends on making cells useful while managing misuse, safety, governance, and access.
Featuring
University of Minnesota
Richard Phillips Feynman
NASA
Orville WrightListen to the full episode and explore every guest, topic, and moment on PodLume.