PACE's approach to artificial cells is bottom up and based on novel chemistry complemented by electronic microfluidic systems. PACE is concentrating on moving towards artifiical cells by establishing an IT interface to cell scale chemistry using the omega machine, microscale complementation and electronic genomes.
Complete artificial cells in PACE are self-reproducing and capable of evolution, they are self-containing thereby posessing individual identity from their environment and they are self-sustaining in that they can maintain their complex structure utilizing simpler environmental resources (such as energy and chemical building blocks).
The two primary artificial cell chemistries being developed in PACE start with artificial molecules, PNA and catalipids, which can play a functional role in two or more of these three key cell functions. Combinatorial optimization of the systems chemistry of these molecules together with other non-biochemical additives towards full artificial cell functionality is being investigated in PACE, assisted by programmable microfluidic complementation.
PACE is also investigating how such artificial cells can be invested with additional information-rich properties allowing their self-organization and functional utilization for nanoscale information processing and complexity management.