Have Scientists Ever Created Life in a Laboratory?

As of the time of this writing, no, scientists have never created cellular life in a laboratory from scratch.  The technology simply does not yet exist to manipulate molecules with the precision required to create all of the inner workings of a cell, built one atom at a time.

However, many of the important building blocks of life have indeed been created in a laboratory, including amino acids, self-replicating RNA molecules, and self-sealing and self-replicating lipid bubbles (ie, cell membranes) which are profound steps toward the goal of one day creating fully-synthetic life.