Engineering Fellowships for Growth: Development of SimCells as building blocks for synthetic biology

该奖学金的愿景是为合成生物学建立一个前所未有的新生物工程平台- SimCell（简单和模拟细胞），以易于使用，安全处理和可靠的方式执行先进的生物工程功能。该奖学金的目的是将SimCells开发为可编程的“生物机器人”，并为SimCells的标准化工程应用奠定基础。SimCells有潜力开辟一个新的前沿，使生物加工和制造，生物能源，医疗保健，农业和环境监测和保护的新型智能材料的开发成为可能。与活细胞不同，SimCell是一种无染色体的简化细胞生物机器人；它的“硬件”是优化的细胞“外壳”，使特定的细胞特性；它的“软件”是一段DNA，它提供了定义的功能。SimCells中优化的外壳和简单的DNA使它们能够忠实地将大部分能量和资源传递给特定的功能，而不会干扰自然细胞中不需要的途径和网络。SimCell是一种非分裂的、具有生物化学活性的、可设计的和简化的制剂，它可以由经过改造的亲本细胞连续生产，但不能自我复制，这使它比活的转基因生物（GMOs）更容易被公众接受。该奖学金是真正革命性的，通过在活细胞或无细胞系统之间提供中间构建块并利用两者的优势，改变了当前基于活细胞或无细胞系统的合成生物学。通过建立可预测、简单、安全和可编程的新型SimCells生物机器人，它直接解决了合成生物学五大挑战中的三个。SimCells的应用将解决“第三次工业革命”的挑战之一——生物能源。为了证明SimCells是具有高能量转移效率的微型工厂，将设计一个生物转化系统，由SimCells介导，由电子和阳光供电，从水和二氧化碳中生产生物燃料（如乙醇和烷烃）。这将建立在WH先前研究和专利开发的既定合成途径的基础上。该奖学金的成果将为其他长期项目树立一个生物能源基准，并将为广泛的应用创造基础设施。

The vision of this Fellowship is to establish an unprecedented new bioengineering platform for synthetic biology - the SimCell (Simple and Simulated Cell) that performs advanced bioengineering functions in an easy-to-use, safe-to-handle, and reliable-to-build manner. The aim of this fellowship is to develop SimCells as programmable 'bio-robots' and establish the foundation for standardised engineering applications of SimCells. SimCells have the potential to open up a new frontier, enabling the development of new and smart materials for bioprocessing and manufacturing, bioenergy, healthcare, agriculture and environmental monitoring and protection. Unlike a living cell, a SimCell is a chromosome-free and simplified cellular bio-robot; its 'hardware' is the optimised 'shell' of a cell which enables specific cellular properties; and its 'software' is a piece of DNA which delivers the defined functions. The optimised shell and simple DNA in SimCells enables them faithfully delivering most of their energy and resources to a specific function without interference of unwanted pathways and networks in a natural cell. A SimCell is a non-dividing, biochemically active, designable and simplified agent, which can be continuously produced by engineered parent cells, but which cannot reproduce itself, making it more acceptable to public opinion than living genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The Fellowship is truly revolutionary, transforming current synthetic biology based on living cells or cell-free system by providing an intermediate building block between them and taking advantages of both. It directly addresses three of five great challenges of synthetic biology by establishing novel SimCells as predictable, simple, safe and programmable bio-robots. The application of SimCells would lead to address one of challenges in 'the third industrial revolution' - bioenergy. To demonstrate SimCells as miniature factories with high energy transfer efficiency, a bio-transformation system will be designed to produce biofuels (such as ethanol and alkanes) from H2O and CO2, mediated by SimCells and powered by electrons and sunlight. This will be built on the established synthetic pathways developed by WH's previous research and patents. The outcomes of this Fellowship will set a bioenergy benchmark to which other long-term projects will aspire, and will also create the infrastructure for a wide range of applications.