Workshop on Minimal Life; Arlington, VA, August 2009

圣达菲研究所和乔治梅森大学将共同组织于2009年8月在弗吉尼亚州阿灵顿举行的关于最低生活的会议。在过去的50年里，最小生命的概念以多种方式进入生物学，从寻找最小的活细胞开始，然后是最小的基因组，最小的自由活细胞，然后是最小的限定生长介质和能够生长和复制的最小的人工系统。如上所述，人们在结构上和功能上都对最小性进行了探讨，比如在合成生物学中寻找最小的可重组功能单位，或者在生命起源社区中试图确定最低必要的外源支持或控制水平。将涵盖的主题包括：最小基因组自养生物和近自养生物；实验基因组缩减和表征；生物能量的权衡和最低代谢要求；最低复杂的生态系统和地球化学环境；最低限度的化学循环；最低限度的功能RNA和复制子；最低限度的可进化系统；新陈代谢的功能分解；最低限度的功能单位，如生物砖；共生、同体和生态限制；能够繁殖的工程系统；以及合作信息处理和信息共享。与会者将涵盖从微生物学到物理学的广泛专业知识，并分享跨学科交流的强烈愿望，以寻求经验总结和潜在原则。所设想的会议不是展示最新结果，而是一次严肃的对话和尝试，集中在这一背景下最低限度的含义以及这对生物学理论有什么启示。会议由物理系的生命系统物理学计划和NSF分子和细胞生物学系的三个集群共同主办。

The Santa Fe Institute and George Mason University are co-organizing the meeting on Minimal Life to be held in Arlington, Virginia in August 2009. During the past 50 years the concept of minimal life has entered biology in a number of ways starting with the search for the smallest living cell, then the smallest genome, the smallest free living cell, and following on with the minimum defined growth medium and the minimum artificial system capable of growth and replication. Minimality has been approached both structurally, as above, and functionally, as in synthetic biology searches for minimal recombinable functional units, or attempts in the origin of life community to identify minimal necessary levels of exogenous support or control. Topics to be covered include: Minimal-genome autotrophs and near-autotrophs; experimental genome reduction and characterization; bioenergetic trade-offs and minimal metabolic requirements; minimally complex ecosystems and geochemical environments; minimality of chemical cycles; minimal functional RNAs and replicators; minimal evolvable systems; functional decomposition of metabolism; minimal functional units such as BioBricks; symbiosis, syntrophy, and ecological constraints; engineered systems capable of reproduction; and cooperative information processing and information-sharing. The participants will cover a broad range of expertise from microbiology to physics and share a strong desire to communicate across the disciplines to seek both empirical generalizations and underlying principles. The kind of meeting envisioned is not a presenting of the latest results but more a serious dialog and attempt to focus on what minimal means in this context and what this has to tell us about biological theory.The meeting is co-sponsored by the Physics of Living Systems program in the Physics Division and the three clusters in the Molecular and Cell Biology Division at NSF.