The Reed College magazine has this piece on efforts by Reed faculty/students/alums to create "artificial cells". Here's an excerpt:
Thirty years later, Bedau and Packard are on a quest for answers. Surrounded by powerful computers and sophisticated equipment in a high-tech industrial park on the outskirts of Venice, Italy—and bankrolled with millions of euros—they are trying to produce actual cells. The two Reedies are part of a long-shot entry in the race to create artificial life.
Bedau, a philosophy professor at Reed, and Packard, a physicist known for his entrepreneurial success at applying computer models to predict financial markets, are the founders of ProtoLife, an eight-employee biotech startup. ProtoLife is in turn part of a multi-national research consortium funded by a four-year, $10 million grant from the European Commission. A steady stream of Reedies have been involved in the work of Bedau and Packard over the years, contributing to every aspect from computer simulation to bioethics research (see Reedies on the Artificial Life Trail).
Bedau, who is on leave from Reed this spring, believes that the surest way to resolve life’s basic questions is by building a basic life form from scratch. It may sound futuristic and even quixotic, but his is only one of several well-funded research groups vying to create an artificial cell capable of living off its surroundings, multiplying, and evolving.
Hat tip to AJOB Editors Blog, where the article is described as follows:
Reed Magazine has a great interview with the guys at ProtoLife in Venice who are building what they see as artificial cells. A philosopher and a financial analyst, lead a group that were it not so interesting and productive would seem like a snake oil team.
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