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and its surface, expressed by means of
V
is:
3
V
2
π
√
36
9
16
=
R
2
3
V
2
S
=
4
π
=
4
π
π
.
2
√
2, in fact in this case:
3
A reasonable value for having a split is when
Φ
=
√
2
√
36
3
3
=
S
/
π
V
2
that is:
3
2
S
=
×
36
π
V
2
=
3
8
2
=
×
36
π
(
V
/
2
)
=
2
3
36
=
π
(
V
/
2
)
2
which means that the surface of the cell corresponds to that of two spheres having
volume
V
/
2; therefore there is enough surface for splitting the volume in two equal
spheres.
In the attempt to realize minimal cells having autopoietic ability, the starting point
is the capacity to produce lipid vesicles including the basic ingredients of biochem-
ical dynamics: water, DNA and RNA nucleotides and oligo-polymers, enzymes,
ribozymes, peptides, PNA, catalysts, and so on. Of course, interesting byproducts,
of biomedical interest, of these researches are related to crucial mechanisms in in-
novative therapies and drug development. The main objectives in this field concern
the realization within artificial vesicles of the following functionalities.
1. Realization of basic metabolic functionalities, and specific resources acquisition
expulsion;
2. Biochemical energy production;
3. Specific protein expressions mechanisms with some given context dependencies;
4. Complex vesicle internal articulations;
5. Realization of sensorial abilities with activation of environment response mech-
anisms;
6. Communication among synthetic cells;
7. Movement and mechanical activities.
In a wide sense, the essence of this synthetic trend is the realization of supramolec-
ular biochemical machines with specific functions, similar to those performed by
natural cells, capable of self assembly, and self organization.
Another recent trend in synthetic biology was inaugurated on May 20th 2010
by J. Craig Venter, the same researcher who first completed the human genome se-
quencing. The experiment reported by Venter consists first in the synthetic assembly
of the entire genome of a bacterium, Mycoplasma mycoides. For security reasons,
some genes were removed, for controlling possible unexpected problems, and other
genes were introduced for expressing proteins which confer a blue color to the bac-
terium colonies. Then, this synthetic genome was replaced in another bacterium,
