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Toward synthetic life?



This still involves the method of piecemeal assembly, but it is a remarkable accomplishment, it seems to me.
 
From Nature.com news:

Published online: 06 December 2004; | doi:10.1038/news041206-2

Artificial cells take shape

Philip Ball
 
Bacterium-sized 'protein factories' are a step along the road to synthetic life.
 
Primitive cells similar to bacteria have been created by US researchers. These synthetic cells are not truly alive, because they cannot replicate or evolve. But they can churn out proteins for days, and could be useful for drug production, as well as advancing the quest to build artificial life from scratch.