title: Generating minimal living systems from non-living materials and increasing their evolutionary abilities.
abstract: We review lessons learned about evolutionary transitions from a bottom-up construction of minimal life. We use a particular systemic protocell design process as a starting point for exploring two fundamental questions: (i) how may minimal living systems emerge from non-living materials? and (ii) how may minimal living systems support increasingly more evolutionary richness? Under (i), we present what has been accomplished so far and discuss the remaining open challenges and their possible solutions. Under (ii), we present a design principle we have used successfully both for our computational and experimental protocellular investigations, and we conjecture how this design principle can be extended for enhancing the evolutionary potential for a wide range of systems.This article is part of the themed issue 'The major synthetic evolutionary transitions'.
authors.affiliation: Center for Fundamental Living Technology (FLinT), Department for Physics, Chemistry and Pharmacy, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, 5230 Odense, Denmark Santa Fe Institute, 1399 Hyde Park Road, Santa Fe, NM 87501, USA steen@sdu.dk.
authors.forename: Steen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Rasmussen
authors.affiliation: Center for Fundamental Living Technology (FLinT), Department for Physics, Chemistry and Pharmacy, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, 5230 Odense, Denmark.
authors.forename: Adi
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-4296-6148
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Constantinescu
authors.affiliation: Center for Fundamental Living Technology (FLinT), Department for Physics, Chemistry and Pharmacy, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, 5230 Odense, Denmark.
authors.forename: Carsten
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Svaneborg
mesh_terms: D058045:Artificial Cells; D005075:Biological Evolution; D008954:Models, Biological; D000069497:Origin of Life
keywords: minimal life; open-ended evolution; origins of life; protocells; self-assembly; self-organization