Scientists Create 'Life' Inside A Lab, With An Artificial DNA Material That Grows New Cells

One of the most classic horror monsters every created is Frankenstein's monsters. It's only natural we'd be attracted to the story of a man playing God and creating life from nothing. Now, it seems like researchers have been able to do something similar.

Researchers at Cornell's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences have created a life-like material made from DNA that actually has a metabolism. Beyond that, it can also self-assemble and organise, altogether considered three key traits of life.

The researchers use DNA as a polymer in a technique they call DASH (DNA-based Assembly and Synthesis of Hierarchical) materials. In essence, what they've created is a simple machine constructed of biomaterials with the same properties as living creatures.

"We are introducing a brand-new, lifelike material concept powered by its very own artificial metabolism," said Dan Luo, professor of biological and environmental engineering at Cornell. "We are not making something that's alive, but we are creating materials that are much more lifelike than have ever been seen before."

For a living organism to survive, it has to be able to maintain itself and manage change. It needs to be able to generate new cells to replace old ones, as well as get rid of that waste. And both of these require a metabolism for the body to automatically synthesize DNA molecules and arrange them in the form needed to counter decay.

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The material the Cornell scientists developed is amazing because it's capable of autonomously synthesizing its own DNA molecules and creating chains a few millimeters in size. Provided with energy in the form of a reaction solution injected into the material, it began continuing those chains from the head end in tandem with the decay from the tail end.

Basically, the chains kept growing in one direction even as the rear decayed, so over time it looked like it was creepily moving.

This is still early stage research of course, but the scientists behind it are excited by the possibilities it holds. "We are at a first step of building lifelike robots by artificial metabolism," said Shogo Hamada, a research associate in the Luo lab. "Artificial metabolism could open a new frontier in robotics."

The next step they're working on is to get this "living" material to recognize stimuli like light and food and seek it out, or avoid it if it's harmful.

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The reason this works though is because the DNA materials used in this experiment are programmed with instructions on how to metabolise and regenerate itself. Aside from that though, it has no guidance. "Everything from its ability to move and compete, all those processes are self-contained. There's no external interference," Luo said.

"Life began billions of years from perhaps just a few kinds of molecules. This might be the same."

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