Future symposium ‘Building a synthetic cell’ strengthens European alliance

Last week, from 12 to 14 July, a three day future symposium about the challenges and opportunities of building a synthetic cell was held at Ringberg Castle in Germany.

The symposium brought together top researchers in the synthetic cell field, as well as politicians, ethicists and representatives of funding bodies, scientific academies, and industry, paving the way for an even more widely supported European effort to build a living cell from lifeless molecular components using a bottom-up approach.

During the symposium, three Nobel Laureates declared their enthusiasm and support for the collaborative project: Jean-Marie Lehn, Jack Szostak and Ada Yonath. For a comprehensive list of attendees of the future symposium, please click here.

The symposium was initiated and organized by scientists from the University of Oxford, UK (Prof. Hagan Bayley), the Max-Planck Institute for Biochemistry, Germany (Prof. Petra Schwille), and the Kavli Institute of Nanoscience Delft, The Netherlands (Profs. Cees Dekker and Marileen Dogterom)