Ultimately, life also implies overcoming death. Creating life from something dead would arguably be the ultimate proof that the Torah and the Holy Quran are false—a proof of the absurd “primordial soup.”

A lipid vesicle is to a cell roughly what a car body is to an automobile. It is a necessary component, yet it does not make the vehicle operational. What is missing are the engine, electronics, control systems, and energy supply. A similar situation applies to the protocells studied today: they possess a boundary and, in some cases, individual biological functions, yet they remain far removed from an autonomous bacterium. Image: Stein H, Spindler S, Bonakdar N, Wang C and Sandoghdar V (2017) Production of Isolated Giant Unilamellar Vesicles under High Salt Concentrations. Front. Physiol. 8:63. doi: 10.3389/fphys.2017.00063

Between headlines about “artificial life” and scientific reality lies a crucial distinction

When recent media reports speak of “cells created from scratch showing signs of life,” it quickly creates the impression that science has already achieved the transition from the non-living to the living. In reality, however, this formulation usually refers to something much more specific: the construction of simplified biological or proto-biological systems under controlled laboratory conditions.

The biophysicist Kate Adamala is among the key voices in this field of research. Her work focuses in particular on so-called protocells—that is, artificial membrane-bound systems that mimic individual properties of living cells without themselves being complete organisms.

What Kate Adamala’s Research Actually Shows

The focus of this research is not the creation of full life, yet the stepwise reconstruction of its minimal building blocks. Adamala and other researchers are working on how simple chemical components can organize into systems capable of imitating certain life functions.

These include, in particular, lipid-based membranes that can spontaneously form vesicle-like structures, as well as simplified molecular networks that enable reactions within these compartments. In some experiments, rudimentary forms of information processing or replication processes can also be observed—though always under strictly controlled conditions and often with external support.

These systems are scientifically significant because they demonstrate that individual properties of life do not necessarily have to be of biological origin yet can, in principle, emerge from simple chemistry.

The Crucial Distinction Lost in Headlines

The phrase “creating cells from scratch” is often understood by the public to mean that a complete transition from non-living matter to an autonomous organism has been achieved. This interpretation, however, is not correct.

Current experiments do not begin from “absolute nothingness,” yet already presuppose the use of highly purified, partly pre-assembled biological or biochemical components. Even in the most advanced protocell systems, specifically defined molecules are employed that already possess functional properties.

A true “from scratch” approach would mean something far more radical: constructing a living system exclusively from simple, non-biologically organized starting materials such as carbon dioxide, water, ammonia, phosphates, and lipids—without using complex, pre-functionalized biological structures.

Why This Distinction Matters

This distinction is central to interpreting current research results. Only if a system were to arise entirely from such simple chemical starting materials and subsequently self-organize, stabilize, and evolve could one speak, in the strict sense, of the artificial emergence of life.

The current experimental systems—including those associated with Kate Adamala’s work—operate within an intermediate domain: they use the chemistry of life, yet they do not create life from a completely non-living initial state.

The Real Scientific Progress

The real progress of this research lies in partially deciphering the conditions under which life becomes possible. Protocell models demonstrate that membrane formation, simple reaction networks, and partial information-processing systems are, in principle, combinable.

What is still lacking, however, is the stable coupling of all these processes into a fully autonomous system that can sustain itself and evolve without external control.

Conclusion

The notion that scientists are on the verge of creating life in the laboratory likely stems from the vague definition of life within the sciences. This claim does not refer to the emergence of an organism from non-living matter, yet rather to the reconstruction of individual functional components of life within controlled experimental systems: a precise yet still incomplete model of the conditions under which life can arise at all.

The true litmus test would therefore not be an artificial cell membrane or a simplified protocell, yet a complete bacterium. Only if a bacterium were to arise exclusively from simple chemical starting materials such as carbon dioxide, water, ammonia, phosphates, and lipids—without relying on pre-existing biological machinery such as cells, ribosomes, enzymes, or other biological components—could one reasonably claim to have created something that fits even a vague definition of life from non-living matter. According to the current state of science, however, such a breakthrough remains far out of reach, and it is questionable whether this step will ever be achieved. Optimistic researchers regard it as a long-term goal. Others point out that the transition from chemistry to autonomous life may be so complex that it can never be fully reconstructed in the laboratory.

And ultimately, life also implies overcoming death. Creating life from something dead would arguably be the ultimate proof that the Torah and the Holy Quran are false—a proof of the absurd “primordial soup.”

By Okay Altinisik | 3-7-2026, 00:51:24