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Erasing Borders: A Brief Chronicle of Early Synthetic Biology

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Abstract

Synthetic Biology is currently presented as an emergent field involving the application of engineering principles to living matter. However, the scientific pursuit of making life in a laboratory is not new and has been the ultimate, if somewhat distant, aim of the origin-of-life research program for many years. Actually, over a century ago, the idea that the synthesis of life was indispensable to fully understand its nature already appealed to material scientists and evolutionists alike. Jacques Loeb proposed a research program from an engineering standpoint, following a synthetic method (experimental abiogenesis) and based on his mechanist vision of living beings, which he considered true chemical machines. Early synthetic biology endeavors, such as the premature experiments by Alfonso L. Herrera in Mexico, Stéphane Leduc in France, and John B. Burke in United Kingdom, were easily ridiculed on both scientific and ideological grounds. However, in retrospect, all those attempts should be considered as legitimate and sincere anti-vitalistic efforts to cross the apparent border between inert and living matter.

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Acknowledgements

Thanks are given to Ana Barahona and James Cleaves for inviting me to the workshop “History and Philosophy of Origins Research” held at ELSI (Tokyo, Japan), August 24–26th, 2016, where part of this work was presented. The author also thanks Michel Morange (ENS, Paris) for his critical reading of the manuscript and Jesús Català (Universidad CEU-Cardenal Herrera, València), Álvaro Moreno (EHU-UPV, San Sebastian), and Antonio Lazcano (UNAM, Mexico) for fruitful and helpful discussions, and Fabiola Barraclough for expert proofreading of the manuscript. Financial support from Generalitat Valenciana (grant PROMETEOII/2014/065) and Mineco (grant Helios BIO2015-66960-C3-1-R) is acknowledged.

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  1. Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and Institute for Integrative Systems Biology (I2SysBio, Universitat de València-CSIC), Universitat de València (Spain), C. Jose Beltran 2, 46980, Paterna, Spain

    Juli Peretó

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Correspondence to Juli Peretó.

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Peretó, J. Erasing Borders: A Brief Chronicle of Early Synthetic Biology. J Mol Evol 83, 176–183 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00239-016-9774-4

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