Biology, engineering, and the thin red line

Nature blogs has a fascinating report on a recent NSF workshop discussing "minimal life" (a shout out to Jonathan Eisen for posting it to his FriendFeed). Two points in particular struck me a thought-provoking, both related and both in the realm of biological engineering.

My first thought is related to this quote:

Clyde Hutchison of the J Craig Venter Institute said the ultimate goal of his work was “a complete description of biological systems in terms of the laws of chemistry and physics.”

 Religious overtones aside - if that's even possible - this is still a remarkable statement. Can biological systems really be reduced to chemical and physical laws? And if so, what does that say about the role of chaos and emergent properties in biology? Are there systems so simple that they avoid the latter, but can still be considered 'living?'

My second thought is this:  if we reduce a biological system down so far that we can describe it with chemistry and physics alone, can it really teach us anything about life?  Mesoplasma florum is Tom Knight's bacterium of choice, but

It can't make any of its own amino acids or cofactors, or carry out the citric acid cycle. Basically all it does it make and break down proteins.

Clearly, M. florum is interesting from an engineering perspective; for example, as a potential bioreactor. But can it teach us anything about life?

Thin lines.