Thanks!!!!

Thank you, Hanadi! 🥳

Thanks Jon! Super nice to hear.

Eternally grateful to the team, funding agencies (
@erc.europa.eu, @mattertolife.bsky.social @humboldt-foundation.de) and the @tum.de for continuous support.

We need to show that genotype is passed on to offspring during division, which we aim to do with our droplets that divide.
We should also show genes compete. For that, we need multiple (hundreds?) replicators combined to form a real genotype.
So, plenty of work to do.

t.co/OBBa6mEiGR

Genotype—phenotype coupling is critical for Darwinian evolution.
Genes help the organism, which helps genes.
We showed analogous coupling in a non-biological system.

But, we're far from showing Darwinian evolution.

But the other way around is also true.
Hector designed the replicator to help the droplets live much longer during periods without fuel:

Genotype helps the phenotype.

So, Hector developped a replicator compatible with our droplets as a minimal genotype.

He used an autocatalyst from the Deveraj Lab and found that it can replicate
in droplets.
In fact, it copies itself better within droplets than outside them.

So, phenotype helps genotype.

In biology, the genotype is the hereditary information that affects phenotype—our genome. We wonder if it needs to be DNA for new life forms.

As long as it is replicated, passed on to the next generation during division, and affects the phenotype of the synthetic cell, is it OK?

These droplets compete for fuel, which acts as a selection pressure—if you, as a droplet, survive to the next round of fuel, you get to “live” another few minutes. If not, you start over again.

But, whether they survive or not, is completely stochastic—they have no genotype.

The work builds on our efforts towards synthetic life—a system capable of Darwinian evolution based on non-biological building blocks.

We use our fuel-dependent synthetic cells—droplets that emerge and grow when fuel is present, but decay when you forget to feed them.

Thank you, Rienk!

Thank you! Very nice to hear.

Thanks!!!

I'm very grateful for the smooth collaboration and funding by the @erc.europa.eu, the ORIGINS cluster, and the Max Planck School @mattertolife.bsky.social .

In future work, we will endow them with replicators as a genotype. That way, the "mother" droplet passes on information molecules to the next generation. That work is under review here:
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....