Cell-free synthetic biology may offer new ways to design potent and genetically programmable vaccines (Jewett et al. 2008; Tsuboi et al. 2008 Tsuboi et al. , 2010a Zichel et al. 2010; Kanter et al. 2007; Simpson 2006) . It is based on the in vitro transcription and translation of single or multiple gene constructs in order to obtain a functional part or system. Applications of cell-free biology include the production of membrane proteins that are difficult to express in heterologous hosts (Henderson et al. 2007; Junge et al. 2010; Beebe et al. 2010; Nozawa et al. 2010; Reckel et al. 2010; Ishihara et al. 2005; Berrier et al. 2004) , high-throughput screening of protein libraries by in vitro compartmentalization (Mastrobattista et al. 2005) , generation of artificial cells by encapsulation of these complex biochemical reactions into cell-sized compartments, like liposomes (Kita et al. 2008; Sunami et al. 2006 Sunami et al. , 2010 Yamaji et al. 2009; Murtas et al. 2007; Ishikawa et al. 2004; Oberholzer et al. 1999 ). Recently, we have shown that protein expression in liposomes can yield microgramquantities of a model antigen (Amidi et al. 2010) .