What makes something alive? We simply don't know, but synthetic biologists are a step closer to providing an answer thanks to SpudCell, the most sophisticated attempt at creating an artificial life form yet
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What makes something alive? We simply don't know, but synthetic biologists are a step closer to providing an answer thanks to SpudCell, the most sophisticated attempt at creating an artificial life form yet
By New Scientist
2 July 2026
Scientists create artificial life from chemicals, and it eats, grows, and divides like the real thing
Synthetic biology researchers think they’ve made a cell. Is it alive?
An artificial cell with a full lifecycle has been created for the first time
SpudCell: the first synthetic cell with a full life cycle
This Cell Feeds, Grows and Reproduces. And It’s Manmade.
New synthetic cells tiptoe toward creating life
Synthetic Cells to Sell Synthetic Biology
For The First Time, Scientists Say They've Built a Synthetic Cell From Scratch
‘World’s first’ synthetic cell can eat, grow and replicate, scientists claim
Scientists BUILD a cell from scratch in world-first breakthrough
Scientists at the University of Minnesota have engineered "SpudCell," a lab-made entity from lifeless chemicals that mimics key…
Researchers have created what they say may count as the first synthetic cell, and have started a public benefit corporation to…
SpudCell can feed, divide, and even outcompete its siblings. It's not truly alive, its creator tells us, but it could still…
A prototype cell partly capable of replicating itself has been created using 36 existing bacterial genes, but it's not really a…
Scientists built SpudCell, the first synthetic cell that grows, divides and evolves, entirely from non-living chemicals. They…
From chemical building blocks, scientists have created synthetic cells that have most of the hallmarks of life.
