We love doing biocentric, interdisciplinary research. The mesmerising level of self-organization in living cells makes biological soft matter particularly exciting to us. Considering the complexity of living cells, we have a strong liking for bottom-up biology, i.e., studying purified cellular components. We achieve this in a controlled manner by designing homemade, lab-on-a-chip microfluidic systems. Our research spans a diverse range: from engineering synthetic cells and biosensing using liquid crystals, to producing particle-stabilized emulsions and studying the dynamics of intrinsically disordered proteins. All this is possible thanks to my fun, creative, and enthusiastic team, and fostering of numerous collaborations along the way.