Related Experiment Video
Updated: Feb 10, 2026
13:10
Creating Adhesive and Soluble Gradients for Imaging Cell Migration with Fluorescence Microscopy
Published on: April 4, 2013
13.0K
MaxSynBio: Avenues Towards Creating Cells from the Bottom Up
Petra Schwille1, Joachim Spatz2, Katharina Landfester3
1Cellular and Molecular Biophysics, Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, Am Klopferspitz 18, 82152, Martinsried, Germany.
Angewandte Chemie (International Ed. in English)
|May 12, 2018
Summary
The MaxSynBio consortium uses a bottom-up synthetic biology approach to understand life
Area of Science:
- Synthetic biology
- Biotechnology
- Life sciences
Background:
- The MaxSynBio consortium, primarily within the Max Planck Society, investigates living systems.
- Their research focuses on a fundamental, bottom-up approach to synthetic biology.
Purpose of the Study:
- To analyze and understand essential life processes.
- To achieve this through modular reconstitution in minimal synthetic systems.
- The ultimate goal is to construct a basic living unit from non-living components.
Main Methods:
- Employing a bottom-up synthetic biology strategy.
- Modular reconstitution of life processes in minimal systems.
Main Results:
- Detailed analysis and understanding of essential life processes.
- Progress towards constructing a basic living unit from non-living components.
Conclusions:
- Fundamental insights into life processes are being gained.
- Potential for a new generation of biotechnological processes using synthetic cells.
Related Concept Videos
01:21Design Example: Creating a Hydraulic Model of a Dam Spillway
749
Scaled hydraulic models of dam spillways provide a practical way to replicate and study the intricate flow dynamics of these structures. Often built to a 1:15 ratio, these models allow for observing critical water behavior, such as velocity distribution, flow patterns, and energy dissipation.
749
02:58Chemistry of the Cell
48.3K
The cell is chemically composed of water, organic molecules and inorganic ions.
Water
The polarity of the water molecule and its resulting hydrogen bonding makes water a unique substance with special properties that are intimately tied to the processes of life. Life originally evolved in an aqueous environment, and most of an organism’s cellular chemistry and metabolism occur inside the aqueous contents of the cell’s cytoplasm. Special properties of water are its high heat capacity...
Water
The polarity of the water molecule and its resulting hydrogen bonding makes water a unique substance with special properties that are intimately tied to the processes of life. Life originally evolved in an aqueous environment, and most of an organism’s cellular chemistry and metabolism occur inside the aqueous contents of the cell’s cytoplasm. Special properties of water are its high heat capacity...
48.3K
01:07What are Cells?
204.3K
Cells are the smallest and basic units of life, whether it is a single cell that forms the entire organism, e.g., in a bacterium or trillions of them, e.g., in humans. No matter what organism a cell is a part of, they share specific characteristics.
Basic Characteristics of Cells
A living cell has a plasma membrane, a bilayer of lipids that separates the aqueous solution inside the cell called the cytoplasm from the outside environment.
Furthermore, a living cell possesses genetic information...
Basic Characteristics of Cells
A living cell has a plasma membrane, a bilayer of lipids that separates the aqueous solution inside the cell called the cytoplasm from the outside environment.
Furthermore, a living cell possesses genetic information...
204.3K
01:13Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells
28.1K
Stem cells are undifferentiated cells that divide and produce different types of cells. Ordinarily, cells that have differentiated into a specific cell type are post-mitotic—that is, they no longer divide. However, scientists have found a way to reprogram these mature cells so that they “de-differentiate” and return to an unspecialized, proliferative state. These cells are also pluripotent like embryonic stem cells—able to produce all cell types—and are therefore...
28.1K
02:03What is Cell Signaling?
131.1K
Despite the protective membrane that separates a cell from the environment, cells need the ability to detect and respond to environmental changes. Additionally, cells often need to communicate with one another. Unicellular and multicellular organisms use a variety of cell signaling mechanisms to communicate to respond to the environment.
131.1K
02:41Concentration Cells
25.9K
A concentration cell is a type of a voltaic cell constructed by connecting two almost identical half-cells, both based on the same half-reaction and using the same electrode, differing only in the concentration of one redox species. A concentration cell's potential, therefore, is determined only by the concentration difference of the particular redox species.
Consider the following voltaic cell:
Consider the following voltaic cell:
25.9K