Designing and assembling artificial cells (ACs) is a core direction in bottom-up synthetic biology. Here, the advancements in the past 3 years in engineering ACs with focus on compartmentalization and surface modifications with the aim for their integration in semi-synthetic tissue are outlined. Compartmentalization in vesicles, coacervates and hydrogels are discussed for encapsulated catalysis or cytoskeleton formation including the use of components of mammalian cells to increase the ACs’…