The SynCell Asia project, Nature Biotechnology journal, a two-phase ten-year strategy and the ultimate question: can life be created from scratch?

As reported by CCTV+, under a China-led international initiative, Asia’s first ten-year roadmap for creating synthetic cells has been unveiled. This landmark plan defines a systematic path toward creating artificial life from scratch.

The initiative, led by Liu Chenli, director of the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology (SIAT) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, has brought together more than 100 laboratories from six Asian countries: China, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. The roadmap was published on Tuesday in the journal Nature Biotechnology.

This is the first time Asia has developed a systematic plan for the concept of an artificial single-cell life form, setting new scientific standards for synthetic cell research over the next decade.

Liu Chenli explained: “By bringing together scientists from six Asian countries, we launched the SynCell Asia initiative, forming a joint effort to tackle the pioneering fundamental scientific challenge of artificially synthesising single-cell organisms.”

Unlike genetically modified cells, synthetic cells create life from biological macromolecules: phospholipids, proteins and DNA. The goal is to create a basic single-cell system that functions as a living organism. The initiative seeks to answer a question that has intrigued humanity for centuries: can life be created from non-living matter?

The roadmap defines key challenges: maintaining continuous metabolism, ensuring the self-renewal of protein factories (autonomous ribosome regeneration) and solving modular design and complex timing coordination problems.

To overcome these obstacles, an AI-driven “biofactory” is proposed. A central platform in Shenzhen will prepare standardised parts, while research teams across Asia will collaborate on design, synthesis and testing.

The plan outlines a two-phase strategy over the next decade. The first phase aims to create a “proto-cell” with a stable structure. The second phase targets an “auto-cell” capable of autonomous ribosome regeneration and performing more than 10 continuous, coordinated cycles of growth and division. This will allow synthetic cells to move from simple functioning to true self-reproduction.

100 labs. 6 countries. 10 years. One goal — to create life from what is not considered life. China, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand — united to answer a question humanity has been asking for thousands of years. Can you assemble the living from dead parts? SynCell Asia is not just looking for an answer. It is drawing a map. Two phases. Ten years. From a “proto-cell” to an “auto-cell” that can divide on its own. If they succeed, biology will make a leap comparable to landing on the moon. The question is not whether they will succeed. Scientists are confident. The question is what we will do when artificial life becomes a reality. For now, there is no answer. But the roadmap is already on the table.