Kate Adamala

Katarzyna (Kate) P Adamala is an American synthetic biologist and a professor of genetics at the University of Minnesota.

Research
Adamala's work includes contributions to the field of astrobiology, synthetic cell engineering and biocomputing.

Her research on prebiotic RNA replication provided an experimental scenario for the RNA world hypothesis of the origin of life. She has worked on constructing liposome bioreactor synthetic cells.

She is a founder and steering group member of the Build-a-Cell Initiative, an international collaboration for creation of synthetic live cells. She is a co-founder of synthetic cell company Synlife. Adamala and Szostak demonstrated non enzymatic RNA replication in primitive protocells is only possibly in presence of weak cation chelator like citric acid, providing further evidence for central role of citric acid in primordial metabolism.