Evidence map›Paper›PMID 30864949›Full record

ArticleeLife2019

From primal scenes to synthetic cells.

Hub Zwart

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in eLife, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
3citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

3 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Protocellular energy transduction, information and fitness.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025
    Article
  2. The bioethics of synthetic cells.Nature reviews. Molecular cell biology · 2024
    Article
  3. A four-track perspective for bottom-up synthetic cells.Frontiers in bioengineering and biotechnology · 2022
    Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

1 author.

Hub ZwartErasmus School of Philosophy, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.ORCID 0000-0001-8846-5213

Funding

NWO 024.003.019
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Synthetic cells spark intriguing questions about the nature of life. Projects such as BaSyC (Building a Synthetic Cell) aim to build an entity that mimics how living cells work. But what kind of entity would a synthetic cell really be? I assess this question from a philosophical perspective, and show how early fictional narratives of artificial life - such as the laboratory scene in Goethe's

Indexed as

Artificial CellsLifeSystems BiologyCell BiologyHistory of SciencePhilosophy of BiologySynthetic Cells

Identifiers

PMID30864949
PMCPMC6415934

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.