Simulating a minimal cell in the browser

We don’t even know what like, 20% of the genes do. Simulations are neat, but they miss a lot of underlying biology that actually makes an impact on engineering.<p>One of my favorite papers was published 40 years ago on this topic <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pitp.ias.edu&#x2F;sites&#x2F;pitp&#x2F;files&#x2F;morowitz-completeness_of_mol._bio._copy.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pitp.ias.edu&#x2F;sites&#x2F;pitp&#x2F;files&#x2F;morowitz-completeness_...</a>

Have you ever wondered how life’s most basic units, cells, operate? As a programmer and cell biology enthusiast, I embarked on a journey to simulate the simplest cell using TypeScript.

Does this model have operons like <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Lac_operon" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Lac_operon</a> [1] ? I guess they are skipped to reduce the complexity of the model.<p>[1] This operon was the first that was discovered, the idea is that the cell produce the enzymes to eat lactose only if there is lactose and there is no glucose.

Fascinating stuff, thanks! A recent workshop with recorded talks on such cells <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.jcvi.org&#x2F;events&#x2F;minimal-cell-workshop" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.jcvi.org&#x2F;events&#x2F;minimal-cell-workshop</a><p>I am wondering if other researchers can procure or produce these cells or these are rather a know-how of JCVI?

Interesting blog post, based on an interesting paper.<p>For a bit more background, there&#x27;s been a couple of posts on the &quot;minimal cell&quot; concept on Derek Lowe&#x27;s venerable In the Pipeline blog. This 2016 post [1] talks about the initial development of the JCVI-syn3.0 cell; this 2023 post [2] goes over a paper that studied the evolutionary dynamics of these minimal cells.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.science.org&#x2F;content&#x2F;blog-post&#x2F;smallest-viable-genome-very-weird" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.science.org&#x2F;content&#x2F;blog-post&#x2F;smallest-viable-ge...</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.science.org&#x2F;content&#x2F;blog-post&#x2F;ground" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.science.org&#x2F;content&#x2F;blog-post&#x2F;ground</a>

I wonder if it would be possible to simplify the task further, by removing cell reproduction processes? As far as I understand, an &quot;immortal&quot; non-replicating cell does not exist in nature, but there is nothing that prevents an artificial one from existing, especially if it has ways to repair cellular damage.

This is really amazing. I wonder if confounders such as transcriptional bursting[1] are modelled too? I did not check but I assume cell-cycle is readily modelled.<p>1: The tendency of a single cell to perform transcription in bursts of activity&#x2F;inactivity, which averages in bulk tissue as a continuous variable.