Has anyone been able to construct a self-replicating molecular structure in the lab?

Question

I heard somewhere that we were close

Answer 1

Sol Spiegelman (U. of Illinois) was able to create an RNA chain of only 220 nucleotides (!) that is able to reproduce. It is humorously referred to as "Spiegelman's monster."

In 1997, Eigen and Oehlenschlager were able to make it even shorter, an RNA chain containing only 48 or 54 nucleotides (!!).

Now, it's important to clarify that these were originally created starting with a piece of existing RNA from a virus. But the the key points are:
(A) the new piece of RNA is *much* shorter than the original piece of viral RNA of 4,500 nucleotides ... so it cannot be said to be a mere duplicate of an already replicating molecule;
(B) this demonstrates that an *extremely* small number of nucleotides (48 to 54) is all that is necessary to support replication; (this is very important for people trying to compute the odds of such combinations occuring by chance);
(C) this also demonstrates that replication does not require a cellular environment ... an extremely simple environment consisting of a solution with some free nucleotides and some salts is all that is necessary.

Answer 2

Like secretsauce said, 'Spiegelmans monster'.

I'd only like to add that in R. Dawkin's book "The Ancestors Tale" he adds that further work showed that RNA variants would, rarely, arise spontaneously in a test tube containing nothing but the raw materials for RNA and an enzyme that facilitates RNA replication. And further that 'Spiegelmans monsters' could evolve from said spontaneously generated RNA.

Answer 3

I heard that too.