Regina G. Barber

A synthetic cell that replicates itself, but was made in a lab.

Drew Endy is an engineer at Stanford University and part of a community co-founded by Kate called Build a Cell.

This is an international group of researchers with the same goal, to build a cell from the bottom up, piece by biological piece.

If scientists can create cells, they can be programmed to do all sorts of things.

And scientists have touted the dream of synthetic cells as a new solution to the world's problems.

Synthetic cells could be programmed to act as part of new cancer therapies, can create new medicines easier and cheaper.

They could even be made to produce artificial photosynthesis to help with green energy projects.

And somehow, that would just be the beginning.

Synthetic biology is not a reality yet, but it's on the horizon, especially now that engineers have taken the helm.

Today on the show, DIY cells.

We dive into what it would look like to be inside of a cell.

Why scientists are bothering with making a cell from scratch.

and how engineers are leading the field.

I'm Regina Barber, and you're listening to ShoreWave, the science podcast from NPR.

Okay, Drew, before we can build a cell, we have to understand them.

And I've always had a really hard time visualizing what's happening inside of a cell.

But you have this really cool way to think of them as a building, right?

Yeah, scale it up.

Yeah, and just have actors doing the things inside the cell and moving things.

It's like those terrible bookstores, you know, where they have those piles of books and you're like, get organized like that place.