Transforming Life Sciences: Artificial Life

在生物学和化学之间的前沿，没有任何一个进步会改变生命科学的研究。 科学不仅仅是人工生命形式的合成（一种“异生物质”）。这种异生物质 复制了我们在自然生命中所珍视的大部分东西（包括其生长、进化和适应的能力）， 但核心分子生物学不同这将超越“合成”的愿景， 生物学”和“仿生化学”，第二个本周刚刚获得诺贝尔奖， 化学，以提供人工生物学，一个新的领域，将改变生物医学， 科学和技术在未来几十年。 这一目标超越了NIH目前对“描述生物学”的定位， 这一模式已经在主任的职责范围内得到了很好的体现。事实上，我们开始假设 那些现在由主任在这些现在经典的描述性策略中支持的人， 最终完成这项研究计划，制作出生物分子结构的可靠图片 从原子尺度到宏观尺度。这里提出的工作将为 生命科学将紧随其后。 任何进行变革性研究的应用程序都内置了一个悖论。如果真的是 虽然它具有变革性，但人们无法预测其影响的细节。这对同行来说是个问题 审查.为了解决这一矛盾，我们列出了六项技术能力， 人工生命形式应该基于体外初步工作已经提供的东西。 这些包括改变我们产生临床使用的受体、配体和催化剂的方式， 降低诊断试剂盒的生产成本，并创造新的工程蛋白质类别。 在科学方面也出现了类似的悖论。现在许多人认为， “理解”必须是设计和综合的能力。然而，我们认识到， (now在没有达尔文主义的支持下，设计是不够的。我们的全球 因此，战略结合了设计和达尔文主义。这种发现和范式转变的策略 无法与基于假设的研究相匹配。 同样，发现和范式的变化是无法预测的，这就产生了另一个同行评审问题。我们 通过体外研究的例子来管理这一点，这些研究已经改变了我们对核酸的理解， acids. 因此，该提案包含了出乎意料的大量初步结果。这 将其置于被排除在“变革性研究”计划之外的风险之中， 转化可以作为一个标准的NIH项目来资助。这一希望已被充分证明是不切实际的; 这项实验反复尝试，但都失败了，部分原因是风险仍然很高。 与实现第一个必要突破的努力有关。为了控制这种风险， 它的结构为成功提供了许多途径。平衡这是一个不可否认的事实，如果任何一个 成功之路，其结果（人造达尔文生命形式）将是 这是生物化学科学史上最令人难忘的成就。最后， 我们提供了关于人工生命的生物安全的详细讨论。

No single advance at the frontier between biology and chemistry will transform research in the life sciences more than the synthesis of an artificial life form (a “xenobiotic”). This xenobiotic will reproduces much of what we value in natural life (including its ability to grow, evolve and adapt), but with a different core molecular biology. This would move beyond the visions of “synthetic biology” and “biomimetic chemistry”, the second recognized just this week with a Nobel Prize in chemistry, to deliver an artificial biology, a new field that will transform both biomedical science and technology for decades to come. This goal transcends the current orientation of the NIH towards “descriptive biology”, a research paradigm that is already well represented in the Director’s portfolio. Indeed, we begin by assuming that those now supported by the Director in these now-classical descriptive strategies will eventually complete this research programme, producing robust pictures of biomolecular structure from the atomic scale to the macroscopic scale. The work proposed here will lay the grounds for the life sciences that will follow next. A paradox is built into any application to do transformative research. If it is truly transformative, one cannot anticipate the details of its impact. This is problematic for peer review. To manage this paradox, we list a half- dozen technological capabilities that our artificial life form should deliver based on what in vitro preliminary work has already delivered. These include transforming the way we generate clinically used receptors, ligands, and catalysts, lowering the cost of diagnostic kit production, and creating new classes of engineered proteins. An analogous paradox arises respect to the science. Many now argue that the touchstone for “understanding” must be the ability to design and synthesize. However, we recognize that theory (now, and far into the future) is inadequate to design without support from Darwinism. Our global strategy therefore combines design and Darwinism. This strategy for discovery and paradigm change cannot be matched by hypothesis based research. Again, discovery and paradigm change cannot be predicted, creating another peer review issue. We manage this by examples from in vitro studies, which have transformed our understanding of nucleic acids. Consequently, this proposal contains an unexpectedly large number of preliminary results. This places it at risk of being excluded from a "transformative research" program under a hope can its transformation can funded as a standard NIH project. This hope has been fully shown to be quixotic; the experiment has been repeatedly tried and failed, in part because of the high risk still associated with efforts to achieve the first needed breakthrough. To manage this risk, the program is structured to give many routes to success. Balancing this is the unarguable fact that if any one of the routes to success is traversed, the result (an artificial Darwinian life form) will be as memorable as any of the many accomplishments in the history of biological-chemical science. Last, we provide a detailed discussion of biosafety with respect to artificial life.