A group from the University of Nottingham has taken some significant first steps in order to create a synthetic copycat of a living cell.

Using specific substances such as polymers – long-chain molecules – Dr Cameron Alexander and PhD student George Pasparakis in the University’s School of Pharmacy have constructed capsule-like structures that have properties mimicking the surfaces of a real cell. Experts demonstrate how they have been able to persuade the capsules to talk to natural bacteria cells and transfer molecular information.

According to the scientists, the breakthrough could have a number of prospective medical uses.

That technology could be used for the growth of new targeted drug delivery systems, where the capsules would be used to carry drug molecules to attack precise diseased cells in the body, whereas leaving healthy cells intact, in that way reducing the number of side influences that can be connected with treatments for life-threatening diseases such as cancer.

It could also be used as an anti-microbial agent that will allow doctors to wipe out damaging bacteria, without attacking other health-promoting bacteria in the body, which could present a new weapon in the fight against superbugs.

Alexander declared in a report that those are very primordial steps in the lab, and still a long way from a factual synthetic counterpart to a biological cell, but they have showed that they can move certain molecules from inside the synthetic capsule to the bacteria when they are in physical contact, which is an exciting expansion.

Also, he pointed out that it’s particularly early stages, however it’s a progress closer to the big experimentation when they can one day ask whether a natural cell can think a synthetic cell is one of its own.