How can life-like functions be built from the bottom up without trying to recreate life itself? That question is central to research at iNANO and Aarhus University, where Assistant Professor Miguel A. Ramos Docampo, Professor Brigitte Städler, and colleagues are developing artificial systems that mimic selected features of living cells. In work highlighted by Aktuel Naturvidenskab and published in ACS Nano, the team demonstrates how nanoscale motors can help artificial cells form internal protein networks resembling a cell’s cytoskeleton.

The inspiration came from Listeria monocytogenes, a bacterium known for its ability to move inside living cells by generating actin “comet tails” that push it forward. The researchers adapted this principle at the nanoscale, embedding nanomotors inside vesicles that serve as simplified artificial cells. When actin polymerisation is activated on the surface of the motors, protein filaments grow in multiple directions and help generate an internal network within the vesicle. At the same time, the motors themselves move faster as the growing filaments push them forward.

The resulting structures resemble the cytoskeleton, the dynamic internal scaffold that helps organise and transport components in living cells. Although the artificial cells are still far simpler than biological cells and do not organise themselves through the same complex signalling processes, the study shows how motion and structural organisation can be linked in one synthetic system. According to the researchers, this is an important step towards understanding how selected cell-like functions can emerge from relatively simple building blocks.

The work also highlights the value of interdisciplinary collaboration. The research brings together expertise in chemistry, biophysics, nanotechnology, and mathematics, while connecting two fields that are not often combined: bottom-up synthetic biology and active matter research. By integrating experiments, theory, and nanoscale design, the team is opening new ways to study how artificial cells may one day respond to their surroundings or interact with living systems. The goal is not to recreate life, but to better understand and emulate specific life-like behaviours in stable, programmable synthetic systems.

Read the full feature by Peter Gammelby in Aktuel Naturvidenskab.