Protocells bridging nonliving and living matter / edited by Steen Rasmussen, Mark A. Bedau, Liaohai Chen, David Deamer, David C. Krakauer, Norman H. Packard, and Peter F. Stadler.

• I OVERVIEW: BRIDGING NONLIVING AND LIVING MATTER -- 1 The Early History of Protocells: The Search for the Recipe of Life -- 2 Experimental Approaches to Fabricating Artificial Cellular Life -- 3 Semisynthetic Minimal Cells: New Advancements and Perspectives -- 4 A Roadmap to Protocells -- II INTEGRATION -- 5 Steps Toward a Synthetic Protocell -- 6 Assembly of a Minimal Protocell -- 7 Population Analysis of Liposomes with Protein Synthesis and a Cascading Genetic Network -- 8 Constructive Approach to Protocells: Theory and Experiments -- 9 Origin of Life and Lattice Artificial Chemistry -- 10 Models of Protocell Replication -- 11 Compositional Lipid Protocells: Reproduction without Polynucleotides -- 12 Evolutionary Microfluidic Complementation Toward Artificial Cells -- III COMPONENTS -- 13 Self-Replication and Autocatalysis -- 14 Replicator Dynamics in Protocells -- 15 Peptide Nucleic Acids as Prebiotic and Abiotic Genetic Material -- 16 The Core of a Minimal Gene Set: Insights from Natural Reduced Genomes -- 17 Parasitism and Protocells: Tragedy of the Molecular Commons -- 18 Forming the Essential Template for Life: The Physics of Lipid Self-Assembly -- 19 Numerical Methods for Protocell Simulations -- 20 Core Metabolism as a Self-Organized System -- 21 Energetics, Energy Flow, and Scaling in Life -- IV BROADER CONTEXT -- 22 Gánti's Chemoton Model and Life Criteria -- 23 Viral Individuality and Limitations of the Life Concept -- 24 Nonlinear Chemical Dynamics and the Origin of Life: The Inorganic-Physical Chemist Point of View -- 25 Early Ancestors of Existing Cells -- 26 Prebiotic Chemistry, the Primordial Replicator, and Modern Protocells -- 27 Cell-like Entities: Scientific Challenges and Future Applications -- 28 Social and Ethical Issues Concerning Protocells. 

• This book offers a comprehensive resource on current attempts to create simple forms of life from scratch in the laboratory. These minimal versions of cells, known as protocells, are entities with lifelike properties created from nonliving materials, and the book provides in-depth investigations of processes at the interface between nonliving and living matter. Chapters put this state-of-the-art research in the context of theory, laboratory work, and computer simulations on the components and properties of protocells. The book also provides perspectives on research in related areas and such broader societal issues as commercial applications and ethical considerations. The book covers all major scientific approaches to creating minimal life, both in the laboratory and in simulation. It emphasizes the bottom-up view of physicists, chemists, and material scientists but also includes the molecular biologists' top-down approach and the origin-of-life perspective. The capacity to engineer living technology could have an enormous socioeconomic impact and could bring both good and ill.

Ämnesord

Artificial cells  (LCSH)

Life (Biology)  (LCSH)

Cells  (MeSH)

Biogenesis  (MeSH)

Cell Physiological Phenomena  (MeSH)

Models, Biological  (MeSH)

Publikations- och innehållstyp

576.83 (DDC)

Ueaa (kssb/8 (machine generated))