Elements of a Vesicle Machine

尽管细胞被认为是最小的生命单位，但它们实际上是由更小的组件组成的，这些组件使它们能够执行自我修复、产生和利用能量等功能。这些成分由大量蛋白质和脂类组成，它们是细胞的组成部分，它们实际上共同作用，创造更高水平的功能。一个有用的类比是城市和牢房。一座城市通常需要一堵墙(一层外脂质膜)、发电厂(动物细胞的线粒体和植物细胞的叶绿体)以及工厂和工程公司来修复城市基础设施(脂质稳态机械)。在这个项目中，我们的目标是拆分细胞，但不是在工人的层面上，而是在城市基础设施的层面上，并以不同的组合将它们重新组合在一起，以期构建一个新的城市(新型的自组装微米级机器)。这些成分，我们将从细胞‘劫持’将被安置在人造脂囊中，将提供一个外壳，模仿细胞的能力，圈护和保护他们的基础设施。目前还不知道哪些组件可以以这种方式耦合，这是我们致力于探索的事情。

Despite cells being thought of as the smallest unit of life, they are actually made up smaller components that give them the ability to perform functions such as self-repair, and produce and harness energy. These components consists of large collections of proteins and lipids, the building blocks of cells, that actually work together to create higher level functions. A useful analogy is that of a city and a cell. A city often requires a wall (an outer lipid membrane), power plants (mitochondria from animal cells, and chloroplasts from plant cells) and factories and engineering firms to repair the city infrastructure (lipid homeostatic machinery). Each of these units is run by workers and machinery (lipids and proteins).In this project, we aim to take apart cells, but not at the level of the workers , instead at the level of the city infrastructure and bring them back together in a different combination with a view to constructing a new city (novel self-assembling micron scale machinery). These components, that we will be 'hi-jacking' from cells will be housed within artificial lipid vesicles that will provide a housing which mimics the ability of cells to ring-fence and protect their infrastructure. It is not yet known which components can be coupled in this manner and this is something that we aim to explore.