Reconstituting Biology – a Chart to Minimal Cells

洛伦兹中心关于重建生物学的研讨会将于2020年6月底和7月初在荷兰莱顿举行。本次研讨会的人数上限为55人，主要讨论以工程最小合成细胞为中心的研究的最新技术和挑战。以最近在德国和荷兰成立的联盟以及在美国成立的大型研究团队为基础，研讨会将邀请来自欧洲和美国在这一领域工作的领导者。讲习班主要以小组讨论为基础，将包括应邀小组的学员和一些选定的初级教员。该研讨会为学员和初级教师提供了与该领域的专家研究人员建立联系的独特机会，可能会产生新的研究想法。研讨会将聚焦于四个问题/目标：1)我们是否有能力重建任何类似生命的东西？2)定义人为设计的元素或构建模块在构建合成最小细胞中的作用。3)目前自下而上重构细胞功能的主要限制是什么？我们如何克服这些限制？4)定义方法/实践来建立研究社区，共享构建模块、技术和协议，以确保发现在许多实验室中可重复。研讨会的联合主席将收集研讨会的讨论以及参与者的意见，目的是将其作为一篇观点文章发布，以传播到大型社区。该奖项由分子和细胞生物科学部的细胞动力学和功能集群以及系统和合成生物学集群共同资助。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The Lorentz Center workshop on Reconstituting Biology will be held in Leiden, The Netherlands at the end of June and early July 2020. The workshop, capped at 55 participants, focuses on discussing the current state-of-the-art and challenges in research centering on engineering minimal synthetic cells. Building upon recent consortiums formed in Germany and The Netherlands and large research teams formed in the US, the workshop will feature leaders working in this space from Europe and the US. The workshop is mostly discussion-based in small groups and will include trainees from the invited groups and some selected junior faculty. The workshop provides unique opportunities for the trainees and junior faculty to network with expert researchers in the field, potentially leading to new research ideas. The workshop will focus on four questions/goals: 1) Will we ever be able to reconstitute anything life-like? 2) Define the role of human-designed elements or building blocks play in building synthetic minimal cells. 3) What are currently the main limitations for reconstituting cellular functionalities from the bottom up and how do we overcome them? 4) Define approaches/practices to set up research community that shares building blocks, techniques, and protocols to ensure findings are reproducible across many labs. The workshop discussion will be collected by the workshop co-chairs along with input from the participants, with an aim to publish it as a perspective article to reach a large community. This award was co-funded by the Cellular Dynamics and Function Cluster and the Systems and Synthetic Biology Cluster in the Division of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.