Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of work being undertaken to create synthetic cells.

In 2014 the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) provided £1,213,385 in funding for a research study on creating synthetic cells to support cancer treatments. This is due to conclude in 2018. Additionally, in 2017/18 the NIHR provided £406,071 in clinical research support for 26 studies on the creation or use of synthetic cells in areas such as cancer, dementia and neurodegeneration, paediatrics, diabetes, hepatology, musculoskeletal disorders, ophthalmology and reproductive health.

Synthetic biology is also an area of strategic interest for UK Research and Innovation, through the Medical Research Council (MRC), the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

The MRC has invested £9.5 million, from April 2017 to March 2022, into two programmes at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge. These focus on the incorporation of a range of different amino acids into proteins for novel applications.

The BBSRC and EPSRC have in part funded the Synthetic Yeast genomes (Sc2.0) project collaboration between the University of Edinburgh and Imperial College London, as well as a project at the University of Bristol which is working to create a minimal version of a cell (protocell).