acatech on Tuesday: How simple can a living system be?

Biology defines the cell as the smallest unit of life. But even the simplest cells on Earth are incredibly complex, making it practically impossible to understand them in their entirety. We also still have no idea how the first cell could have come into existence.

For this reason, we are attempting to recreate essential life processes using simple biological building blocks in order to gain an understanding of the physical and chemical conditions necessary for a chemical system to become a biological system. To this end, we use the approach of synthetic biology, which breaks down cellular systems into individual functional modules that can be studied independently of one another. We are particularly interested in the function of cell division.

We are currently working to construct a molecular system that is as simple as possible and capable of autonomously dividing so-called membrane vesicles—the simplest models of cell membranes—into two daughter cells. To this end, we are using several protein systems derived from E. coli bacteria.

Lecture:

• Prof. Dr. Petra Schwille, Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry | acatech Member

Registration:

Participation in the event is free of charge. Please register via the following link:

Registration: How simple can a living system be?

In cooperation with vhs.wissen live.