The next big step toward the creation of life in the lab, Joyce says, will be to engineer (or evolve) a set of synthetic molecules that can perform metabolism as well as replication.

• 乔伊斯说，要在实验室里创造生命，下一个重要步骤将是设计（或演化出）一组除了复制之外还能进行代谢的合成分子。