In the third year of PACE ProtoLife has made two key contributions toward future capabilities. Concerning the IT implications of programmable artificial cell evolution, ProtoLife has co-organized a major international conference on morphological computation (MorphoComp), at the ECLT venue. This conference will showcase the state of the art on the kind of implicit computation that is done implicitly by devices in virtue of their shape and physical materials, and this is exactly the kind of computation that happens naturally in simple cellular life forms. The first conference of its kind, MorphoComp will bring together an interdisciplinary mix of scientists from the areas of computation, chemistry and molecular biology, and materials science to identify a synergistic center of gravity that melds work in many different areas to tackle the new fundamental theoretical challenges. ProtoLife's specific contributions to the content of MorphoComp ProtoLife an overview of how the iterated high-throughput experimentation (iHTE) that is directed by statistical models of experimental data is an embodied chemical analog computation engine for discovery and optimization of complex chemical systems with desired functionality. They also include a new theory and experimental verification of how spatially extended structures like pores in membranes can achieve critical cellular functions like rectification.
ProtoLife's other key contribution to future capabilities is the production of the first book to be published that treats the broader implications of creating life from scratch (Bedau and Parke, eds., Our future with protocells: the social and ethical implications of the creation of living technology, 2007, MIT Press). The creation of artificial cells will raise a number of dramatic and pressing social and ethical issues, involving benefits to individuals and to society, risks to human health and the environment, and transgressions of cultural and moral prohibitions. The Bedau & Parke volume collects sixteen new essays from international experts who explore these issues from a diversity of perspectives, including (i) discussions on risk, uncertainty, and precaution, (ii) lessons from recent history and related technologies, and (iii) analyses of the role of the public and the ethics of protocell science and technology. Most of the chapters in the book were originally delivered as contributions to ECLT workshops on the social and ethical implications of artificial cells.