Workshop on Minimal Life; Arlington, VA, August 2009

圣达菲研究所和乔治梅森大学将于2009年8月在弗吉尼亚州阿灵顿共同组织关于最低限度生命的会议。在过去的50年里，最小生命的概念以多种方式进入生物学，首先是寻找最小的活细胞，然后是最小的基因组，最小的自由活细胞，然后是最小的确定生长培养基和能够生长和复制的最小人工系统。最小化在结构上和功能上都有研究，如在合成生物学中寻找最小的可重组功能单位，或试图在生命群落的起源中确定最低限度的外源支持或控制。将涵盖的主题包括：最小基因组自养生物和近自养生物;实验基因组简化和表征;生物能量权衡和最小代谢要求;最小复杂生态系统和地球化学环境;最小化学循环;最小功能RNA和复制子;最小可进化系统;代谢的功能分解;最小功能单位，如生物砖;共生，互养和生态约束;能够复制的工程系统;合作信息处理和信息共享。参与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，以寻求经验概括和基本原则。这次会议的目的不是展示最新的研究成果，而是一次严肃的对话，并试图把重点放在最低限度在这种情况下意味着什么，以及这对生物学理论有什么启示。这次会议由物理系生命系统物理学项目和NSF分子与细胞生物学系的三个小组共同主办。

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.