{"id":245904,"date":"2026-10-24T09:35:50","date_gmt":"2026-10-24T14:35:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/10\/dna-programs-a-cell-free-material-to-build-its-own-motors-and-move"},"modified":"2026-10-24T09:35:50","modified_gmt":"2026-10-24T14:35:50","slug":"dna-programs-a-cell-free-material-to-build-its-own-motors-and-move","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/10\/dna-programs-a-cell-free-material-to-build-its-own-motors-and-move","title":{"rendered":"DNA programs a cell-free material to build its own motors and move"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Researchers have created a material that manufactures the proteins responsible for cell movement, without needing intact living cells. By embedding cell-free gene expression into a thin sheet of protein filaments, they were able to make the material wrinkle, rise into blister-like shapes and break into bundles that flow around one another.<\/p>\n<p>The instructions driving these transformations are built into the material itself\u2014in DNA. Changing the genetic program made the filaments sustain flowing motion, stop after a burst of activity or repeatedly speed up and slow down.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41563-026-02767-4\" target=\"_blank\">study<\/a>, published in <i>Nature Materials<\/i>, demonstrates mechanical behavior that is \u201cgenetically programmed and executed autonomously,\u201d as the authors describe it. Once assembled, the material can change its activity without researchers intervening at each step.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Researchers have created a material that manufactures the proteins responsible for cell movement, without needing intact living cells. By embedding cell-free gene expression into a thin sheet of protein filaments, they were able to make the material wrinkle, rise into blister-like shapes and break into bundles that flow around one another. The instructions driving these [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,412,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-245904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-genetics","category-robotics-ai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245904\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}