SpudCell can grow, copy its genome and divide, bringing researchers closer to constructing cells from the bottom up, but it still depends on laboratory-supplied biological machinery.
THE UNIVERSAL RECORD
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By Brad Socha | Updated September 30, 2026 | 9:19 PM EST
Scientists at the University of Minnesota have assembled a synthetic cell from defined chemical components that can carry out many of the fundamental processes associated with living cells, including growth, genome replication and division.
Called SpudCell, the experimental system represents an important advance in bottom-up synthetic biology, the effort to understand life by constructing increasingly capable cell-like systems from individual components rather than modifying an existing organism.
The University of Minnesota describes SpudCell as the first synthetic cell capable of completing a full cellular life cycle. The system contains a lipid membrane, a genome of approximately 90,000 base pairs distributed among nine DNA molecules and dozens of purified enzymes. Researchers report that it can acquire resources, grow, replicate its genome, divide and undergo selection and competition across multiple generations.
But SpudCell is not simply a new organism created from scratch.
It still depends heavily on sophisticated biological machinery supplied by researchers and cannot indefinitely reproduce as an autonomous natural cell does. That distinction is crucial to understanding what scientists have, and have not, created.
Building a Cell From the Bottom Up
There are different ways scientists can approach the construction of simplified cells.
One strategy begins with an existing organism and removes genes until researchers determine which components are essential for survival. Bottom-up synthetic biology takes a fundamentally different approach: scientists begin with individual molecular components and attempt to assemble them into a functioning cell-like system.
SpudCell follows the bottom-up approach.
Its membrane is constructed from lipids, while DNA carries genetic instructions. The system incorporates purified enzymes and other molecular machinery needed to carry out processes that natural cells normally perform for themselves. According to the researchers’ project documentation, SpudCell contains 36 purified enzymes in addition to its roughly 90-kilobase genome.
One particularly difficult challenge has been cell division.
Natural cells employ elaborate internal molecular machinery to organize and divide themselves. The University of Minnesota team developed a different mechanism for SpudCell. Proteins encoded by its genetic material accumulate on the cell membrane, creating mechanical stress that eventually causes the membrane to split.
The result is a system in which genetic information helps control its own division.
SpudCell can also take in material from its surroundings, increase in size and replicate its DNA. Bringing those processes together within one chemically defined system is what distinguishes the experiment from earlier demonstrations of individual cell-like functions.
Yet completing those processes does not necessarily make SpudCell alive.
Is SpudCell Actually Alive?
There is no universally accepted boundary separating sophisticated chemistry from life, making experiments such as SpudCell scientifically and philosophically significant.
The researchers describe their system as a synthetic cell capable of completing a cell cycle. Independent scientists, however, have emphasized that this does not mean researchers have created fully autonomous artificial life.
SpudCell cannot manufacture all of the molecular machinery it needs to survive and reproduce.
Among its important limitations is its dependence on externally supplied components involved in protein production and energy use. Scientists must provide the controlled environment and molecular resources required to keep the system operating. Independent reporting on the research also notes that SpudCell’s reproductive performance deteriorates after several generations.
That separates it from even extremely simple natural cells.
Living cells continually manufacture, maintain and replace much of the machinery necessary for their own survival. They obtain and transform energy, respond to their surroundings and reproduce with enough reliability for populations to persist and evolve.
SpudCell reproduces some of those behaviours but does not yet combine them with the autonomy and durability characteristic of natural organisms.
Georgia Tech biomedical engineer Tara Deans described the system as an important milestone while emphasizing that it remains dependent on researchers and controlled laboratory conditions. Rather than demonstrating that scientists have already created autonomous synthetic life, SpudCell helps reveal which capabilities are still missing.
That may ultimately be one of the experiment’s most important contributions.
How Close Are Scientists to Building Life?
SpudCell provides researchers with a simplified platform for investigating one of biology’s fundamental questions: What is the minimum machinery required for something to become self-sustaining and evolvable?
Each limitation offers another clue.
A future synthetic cell would need to become considerably more autonomous. It would have to reliably reproduce its genetic material, manufacture more of its own molecular machinery, obtain and use energy, maintain its internal chemistry and continue reproducing without researchers repeatedly supplying essential biological components.
Scientists also want to understand how these functions interact.
A system capable of copying DNA but unable to divide is incomplete. A membrane that divides without reliably distributing genetic material cannot maintain a lineage. A cell that reproduces but cannot regenerate its molecular machinery eventually stops functioning.
Building those processes together may help researchers understand not only modern cells but also how increasingly complex chemical systems could have crossed the boundary into biology early in Earth’s history.
The work could eventually have technological applications as well. Synthetic cells are being investigated as potential platforms for producing useful molecules, sensing chemicals and delivering therapies. The University of Minnesota researchers have discussed possible future applications in medicine and biological engineering.
Those possibilities remain prospective.
SpudCell itself is not currently an autonomous biological factory, medical treatment or environmental cleanup technology. Its immediate importance lies primarily in what researchers can learn from it.
The distinction matters because the phrase “synthetic life” can suggest that scientists have already assembled a completely self-sufficient organism from basic chemicals.
They have not.
What researchers have demonstrated is something more precise: a chemically defined, bottom-up synthetic cell system capable of coordinating several of life’s central processes, including growth, genome replication and genetically encoded division, within the same experimental platform.
That leaves scientists with an even more fundamental challenge.
If researchers can continue adding the missing capabilities until such a system can sustain, reproduce and evolve itself without continual laboratory assistance, the boundary between a synthetic cell and synthetic life may become increasingly difficult to define.
SpudCell has not crossed that boundary.
But it has brought scientists closer to understanding where that boundary may lie.
Sources:
University of Minnesota — World’s First Synthetic Cell With a Complete Life Cycle Could Revolutionize Biological Engineering
https://twin-cities.umn.edu/news-events/worlds-first-synthetic-cell-complete-life-cycle-could-revolutionize-biological
Biotic — SpudCell: A Chemically Defined Synthetic Cell Capable of Growth and Replication
https://biotic.org/research/spudcell/
bioRxiv — A Chemically Defined Synthetic Cell Capable of Growth and Replication
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.07.01.735724v1
Scientific American — Did Scientists Just Create Synthetic Life?
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/did-scientists-just-create-synthetic-life/
Science News — No, the ‘First Synthetic Life’ Isn’t Alive
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/spudcells-synthetic-life-lab-made-cell
Georgia Institute of Technology — Creating Synthetic Life in a Lab? SpudCell Falls Short of the Goal, but Raises Even More Useful Questions
https://news.research.gatech.edu/2026/07/08/creating-synthetic-life-lab-spudcell-falls-short-goal-raises-even-more-useful-questions
About the Author
Brad Socha is the founder of The Universal Record, focused on sourced, factual global reporting. Coverage includes international news, geopolitics, technology, and major developments.