A roadmap toward the synthesis of life

Kriebisch, C. M. E. et al. (57 authors, including Sáenz, J.) (2025) Chem, 11(3). DOI: 10.1016/j.chempr.2024.102399

Summary

This community roadmap, compiled by 57 scientists from 14 countries during a two-week workshop, addresses fundamental questions about what constitutes life and what would be required to synthesize it from non-living matter. It identifies criteria for life (self-sustaining, self-replicating, mutating, open-endedly evolving) alongside hallmarks (compartmentalization, metabolism, growth, reproduction, adaptation), and outlines technical and conceptual challenges spanning synthetic biology, systems chemistry, and biophysics. The roadmap also addresses social, philosophical, and ethical dimensions of creating synthetic life forms.

Key Findings

• Fundamental prerequisites of life are identified as: self-sustaining, self-replicating, randomly mutating, and open-endedly improving through selection
• Progress in assembling functional transcription-translation machinery inside lipid vesicles has been achieved, but integration of multiple subsystems remains a major challenge
• The lack of a broadly accepted definition of life and vague goals have hindered progress
• Communication with the public about synthetic life research is essential but poorly handled by current scientific culture
• Cross-disciplinary integration between synthetic biology, systems chemistry, biophysics, and origin-of-life research is needed

Our Contribution

Our group contributed perspective on membrane design principles and lipidome engineering, drawing on our work with minimal cell membranes (B) and lipidome design.

Significance

This perspective provides a unified vision for the synthetic life field, connecting our work on minimal cells and lipidome engineering to the broader goal of understanding and recreating the fundamental principles of living systems.