Chemists succeed in synthesizing artificial cell membrane

Scientists at the University of California, San Diego have succeeded in artificially synthesizing a cell membrane. Lipids, the molecules that make up cell membranes, have heads that mix easily with water and tails that repel it; in water, they form a double layer with heads out and tails in, a barrier that sequesters the contents of the cell. Using a novel chemical reaction, the scientists were able to create a self-assembling cell membrane with a metal ion as the catalyst. The significance of this technique is that the membrane was made completely independent of any life form, unlike previous studies that used bacteria cells to achieve the chemical reaction. Scientists believe this discovery will help understand how nonliving matter made the transition to living matter.