[DIYbio] Re: This thing they call life

Hey everyone!

I am having some kind of theoretical issue right now, that is that I need to define life.

It is part of a job that I am doing for the Technikfolgenabschätzungsbüro beim Deutschen Bundestag,

discussing the implications of synthetic Biology. Some guy argued that Darwinian evolution is unpredictable

and that only cell free systems should be used for safety reasons – and to trash all other approaches.

I want to explain why cell free systems are nice, but you lose to much of the special functionality of cellular production

by restricting it to that.

So now I am currently trying to update the picture on life and evolution, supplementing it with

recent insights in this domain of research to convince him why hacking life is cool and what the thing is actually about.

Would be awesome to get your support, as this guy I am arguing against is a well established old biochemistry professor,

who got at least ten times as much money and time and personnel to bring up his arguments compared to me,

so a crowdsourced update on life and evolution would rock it J

 

A brief pitch by you of the main argument of the literature you cite would be ideal.

I will of course feed back the info I collected to the community, after some digestion time.

 

Can you help me with some cool papers you know about such terms like:

·         adaptive evolution (Lamarckian style)

·         Horizontal gene transfer

·         directed Hypermutation

·         the functional role of membranes

·         origin of life hypothesis

·         energetic of evolution

·         information concept (syntax and semantics, system of reference)

·         information storage (is it only DNA?)

·         Epigenetics

·         you name it

 

 

Best,

Rüdiger