ReviewiScience2021
Synthetic living machines: A new window on life.
Review in iScience, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 30 papers.
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.
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.
Who cites it
30 citing papers in PubMed.
- Mind Everywhere: A Framework for Conceptualizing Goal-Directedness in Biology and Other Domains-Part Two.Biological theory · 2026Article
- Engineering Basal Cognition: Minimal Genetic Circuits for Habituation, Sensitization, and Massed-Spaced Learning.ACS synthetic biology · 2026Article
- The Origin of Life and Cellular Systems: A Continuum from Prebiotic Chemistry to Biodiversity.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Discovering sensorimotor agency in cellular automata using diversity search.Science advances · 2025Article
- The Morphological, Behavioral, and Transcriptomic Life Cycle of Anthrobots.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2025Article
- Designer mammalian living materials through genetic engineering.Bioactive materials · 2025Review
- Basal Xenobot transcriptomics reveals changes and novel control modality in cells freed from organismal influence.Communications biology · 2025Article
- Analysis of the intrinsic value of life in the context of synthetic biology.Frontiers in bioengineering and biotechnology · 2025Article
- Programming the elongation of mammalian cell aggregates with synthetic gene circuits.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Control of spatio-temporal patterning via cell growth in a multicellular synthetic gene circuit.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Fundamental constraints to the logic of living systems.Interface focus · 2024Review
- Cell-Free Gene Expression in Bioprinted Fluidic Networks.ACS synthetic biology · 2024Article
- Biology System Description Language (BiSDL): a modeling language for the design of multicellular synthetic biological systems.BMC bioinformatics · 2024Article
- Collective intelligence: A unifying concept for integrating biology across scales and substrates.Communications biology · 2024Review
- Review
- The whack-a-mole governance challenge for AI-enabled synthetic biology: literature review and emerging frameworks.Frontiers in bioengineering and biotechnology · 2024Review
- Motile Living Biobots Self-Construct from Adult Human Somatic Progenitor Seed Cells.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2024Article
- Bioelectric networks: the cognitive glue enabling evolutionary scaling from physiology to mind.Animal cognition · 2023Review
- Spatial biology of Ising-like synthetic genetic networks.BMC biology · 2023Article
- Biological Robots: Perspectives on an Emerging Interdisciplinary Field.Soft robotics · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Increased control of biological growth and form is an essential gateway to transformative medical advances. Repairing of birth defects, restoring lost or damaged organs, normalizing tumors, all depend on understanding how cells cooperate to make specific, functional large-scale structures. Despite advances in molecular genetics, significant gaps remain in our understanding of the meso-scale rules of morphogenesis. An engineering approach to this problem is the creation of novel synthetic living forms, greatly extending available model systems beyond evolved plant and animal lineages. Here, we review recent advances in the emerging field of synthetic morphogenesis, the bioengineering of novel multicellular living bodies. Emphasizing emergent self-organization, tissue-level guided self-assembly, and active functionality, this work is the essential next generation of synthetic biology. Aside from useful living machines for specific functions, the rational design and analysis of new, coherent anatomies will greatly increase our understanding of foundational questions in evolutionary developmental and cell biology.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
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.