Goal 6: Anticipate threats with science and technology: Achievement 5

ACHIEVEMENT

Research into protocells—life-like molecule research—advances at Laboratory

Teams of scientists from the Lab and several European research institutions made advances in the development of protocells, systems of molecules that exhibit living cell-like behavior.

Protocells would constitute a major step toward the manufacture of devices capable of lifelike functions—a computer, for example, that can repair itself or microscale machines capable of metabolizing carbon dioxide to reduce the threat of global warming.

Lab research in this area, which could have significant implications for understanding the origin of life on Earth from nonliving chemical processes approximately 4 billion years ago, is being conducted by the Los Alamos Protocell Assembly project.