Living Cells Made From Metal? iCHELLS

Posted by matt on Feb 20, 2012 in Misc

So I can’t believe I didn’t hear about this sooner, as most of the material I see for this came from September of 2011, but apparently scientist Lee Cronin working out of Glasgow has created lifelike (I guess not considered living… yet) cells from special positively and negatively charged salts. When mixing these fancy salts, they naturally form a sort of metal bubble that has some of the same properties of the organic cells we are use to. He calls these curios inorganic chemical cells iCHELLS, but he doesn’t think of them merely as curiosities.

They function similarly to biological cells in that they have porous membranes allowing only certain types of molecules in and out of them. This limits the types of reactions that can happen within them, a feature absolutely necessary to specialized organic cells. Lee has also created metal bubbles within bubbles (see image and link above), the first step in making specialized organelles that would do different functions within the cell. Using something called polyoxometalates (Oh I wish I was smarter) as templates similar (though not quite the same!) to DNA the cells can self replicate. He even has them doing the beginning stages of photosynthesis!

“I am 100 per cent positive that we can get evolution to work outside organic biology,”
- Lee Cronin

Although these cells are not considered living yet, they have already substantially widened the range of possible forms we think an extraterrestrial life form could take.

Take a look at this video of an iCHELL forming, and definitely check out the links below it. They are where I got my information, and my limited understanding of this has hardly done justice to this incredible work.