a rightly timed pause

Scientists have previously dabbled with similar synthetic replicatory systems, but these systems fell short of mimicking biological systems because they eventually stop replicating. This is because the bond between the catalyst and its product becomes too strong, making the system self-poisoning. By using cross-replication, Joyce and Lincoln seem to have overcome this problem and shown, for the first time in a purely synthetic chemical system, indefinite replication, so long as the team continue adding oligonucleotide building blocks.