FIGURE 4 The futuristic concept of building a fully synthetic cell as a multipurpose platform is at a very early stage of development. The ‘learning by building’ approach taken by yeast researchers is central to the construction of a synthetic cell from scratch. The technical basis of the bionet is the ability to barcode, archive, and track artifacts as they move through the world, along with regularly updated standards and protocols for material exchange between researchers. While providing an intuitive way for scientists to store and share their material inventories, the bionet offers novel ways of organizing actions and information around biological subjects such as the synthetic cell project.