NUMEV Seminar: "Physical Assembly of Life-Like Systems"

By Jean-Christophe Baret.
Triolet Campus, Building 36, Lecture Hall 3 – Place Eugène Bataillon, 34090 Montpellier.

NUMEV seminars are open to a wide audience of researchers from all disciplines who wish to learn more about the current research areas of the NUMEV-MIPS community (Mathematics, Computer Science, Physics, and Systems) or about opportunities to develop their skills and expertise.

Physical Assembly of Life-Like Systems

Jean-Christophe Baret, Soft Micro Systems – CRPP, CNRS & Bordeaux University

Abstract

Searching for the transition between inanimate matter and living matter, it seems reasonable to consider that soft matter and elementary self-assembled and self-organized systems played a role in the emergence of life. But as stated by Oparin,‘Natural selection has completely wiped off the face of Earth all the intermediate forms of organization of primary colloidal systems and of the simplest living things’.

The ambition of our research group is to construct artificial systems, integrate them, and assemble them into living systems. Our approach is based on identifying the essential features and properties of living systems and re-engineering them into minimal systems. Among the key functions of life, we focus on metabolism with a minimal approach in which we integrate functions into compartments. These take the form of vesicles, droplets, and membraneless organelles (1-3) and function under out-of-equilibrium conditions.

References

1. Out-of-equilibrium microcompartments for the bottom-up integration of metabolic functions, T. Beneyton, D. Krafft, C. Bednarz, C. Kleineberg, C. Woelfer, I. Ivanov, T. Vidakovic-Koch, K. Sundmacher and J.-C. Baret, Nature Communications, 9:2391 (2018)
2. Sequential bottom-up assembly of mechanically stabilized synthetic cells by microfluidics, M. Weiss, J. P. Frohnmayer, L. T. Benk, B. Haller, J.-W. Janiesch, T. Heitkamp, M. Boersch, R. B. Lira, R. Dimova, R. Lipowsky, E. Bodenschatz, J.-C. Baret, T. Vidakovic-Koch, K. Sundmacher, I. Platzman & J. P. Spatz, Nature Materials, 17, 89-96 (2018)
3. Light-powered CO2 fixation in a chloroplast mimic with natural and synthetic parts, T. E. Miller, T. Beneyton, T. Schwander, C. Diehl, M. Girault, R. McLean, T. Chotel, P. Claus, N. Socorro Cortina, J.-C. Baret, T.J. Erb, Science 368, 6491, pp. 649-654 (2020)

• Learn more