As Richard Feynman said, “What I cannot create, I do not understand.” Creation, or synthesis, is the most effective way to test our understanding. Furthermore, the analysis-by-synthesis approach (i.e., first synthesize an entity, and then analyze) is an effective strategy for studying complex systems such as living organisms, because deductive analysis of such a system from first principles is often difficult. Synthesis may be the only way to test the universality of research outcomes obtained from analyzing living organisms on Earth, which could represent a special case of life. Based on such perspectives, we seek to reconstruct cellular functions and biological phenomena, and eventually the cell itself, by closely collaborating with the Measurement and Theory groups.