Kate Adamala has a vision of the future. In it, biology would replace chemical manufacturing.
“Ultimate success,” says the synthetic biologist, would be that “all the atoms we’re moving in our economy are moved with biology.”
Adamala and her colleagues at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis announced one step toward that future on July 1 when the team unveiled SpudCells, synthetic cells that can replicate their DNA and divide multiple times.
Some people have hailed SpudCells as the first synthetic life. Adamala is not one of them. SpudCells are “obviously not living,” she says. “They’re cells but they’re not alive.”
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