2024-02-16
Nanoseminar in Utrecht
Was great fun to give a Nanoseminar in Utrecht University at the Soft Condensed Matter group, upon invitation by Lisa Tran. I talked about three different types of droplets corresponding to three exciting stories currently cooking up in the lab!
2024-01-19
New year’s celebrations with a ‘gezellig’ hot pot
What a lovely way to start 2024 with a fabulous hot pot dinner, prepared with love by Chang. The extended EmBioSys family, the current and the past students, family and friends, everyone enjoyed to the fullest. Truly ‘gezellig’, as you would say in Dutch! 🙂
2024-01-15
Dance of droplets published in Advanced Materials Interfaces
Great start to the year with our story of on emergence of a dancing dynamics within a two-component system – just oil droplets floating on water – now online in Advanced Materials Interfaces. Kudos to our master student Noor for her hard and creative work and also to Chang for guiding her along in the lab!
2023-10-20
Synthetic biology seminar in Madrid
It was a pleasure to give a MISB (Master on Integrative Synthetic Biology) seminar in Madrid and further interact with the inquisitive and enthusiastic students. Thanks Prof. German Rivas for the kind invitation!
2023-10-15
LC image of the month – Red Light, Green Light, Yellow Light, Blue Light
It’s the second time that a beautiful liquid crystal image from Larry has been selected as the LC image of the month by ILCS. Congrats Larry!
2023-09-14
ELP coacervates for synthetic cells
A nice collaboration with de Vries lab, where we a build a library of elastin-like polypeptides that undergo sharp (less than 0.3 pH units) pH-responsive coacervation. We show its use for engineering synthetic cell compartments, by encapsulating multiple ELPs inside micron-sized vesicles. Congrats to Rob and Ketan!
2023-07-04
Lab trip to Texel!
A fantastic two-day lab trip to Texel. We had everything: a smooth first day with camping, visit to the beach, and a ‘gezzelig’ barbecue into the night. This followed by waking up in the middle (literally!) of the storm, passing a lazy afternoon playing cards for the trains to recover and then somehow ending up at home at 1 ‘o’ clock in the night. The return journey was a challenge, but the group stayed strong and that’s what matters!
2023-03-23
JoVE protocol for OLA
A detailed video protocol now published in JoVE on how to set up OLA in your lab! Congrats to Chang and Ketan!
2023-03-22
Another sensing paper out!
Another nice work from Larry, where we followed up on our previous amphiphile sensing using liquid crystals. Using both long-pitch and short-pitch cholesterics, we show that it is possible to differentiate between lipids with tiny differences in their tails of merely two carbon atoms.
2022-11-25
Group outing at Weihnachtsmarkt
We had a very eventful evening at the Christmas market in Düsseldorf! Glühwein and feuerzangenbowle didn’t disappoint and the hot pot dinner in the end was a perfect finale to a crazy evening! A great bunch of fun-loving scientists, from postdocs to bachelor students!
2022-11-15
New postdoc – Manali Nandy
A new face joins our team today! Manali Nandy recently finished her PhD thesis and will now join us to investigate more about the biomolecular condensates using her physical chemistry toolbox. Welcome Manali!
2022-11-15
NWO-XS grant for designing liquid crystal-based biosensors!
Great to receive another NWO-XS grant, this time on using chiral nematic liquid crystal droplets to sense biomolecules! Specifically, we hope to detect antigen-antibody interactions by observing the colour changes on micron-sized liquid crystal droplets. This also means that Larry gets stay with us for some more time 🙂
Actinosomes published in ACS Synthetic Biology
2022-08-11
Ketan’s actinosome is now published open access! A new approach towards making synthetic cell containers, using the interactions between actin cytoskeleton and biomolecular condensates. We show that actinosomes are porous and capable of carrying out complex biochemical reactions like protein expression. Congrats Ketan on a beautiful work!
2022-06-22
Selena wins the thesis award!
Selena Koene, a former MSc thesis student in our lab, is one of the latest UFW thesis award nominees! She did her master thesis in collaboration with Maria Forlenza (from Aquaculture and Fisheries, AFI), where she tested an exciting idea of using RNA-based coacervates (phase-separated particles) as vaccine delivery agents. Congrats Selena, well deserved!
2022-06-01
Xuefeng joins as a shared PhD student to work on Pickering emulsions
As a part of the Horizon 2020 EU funded project PICKFOOD – Pickering emulsions for food applications – Xuefeng will study the physics behind the coalescence and stability of Pickering emulsions. Welcome Xuefeng!
2022-02-04
Ketan’s actinosomes in news
Ketan’s work on making actinosomes received some nice news coverage, check it out! https://www.drugdiscoverynews.com/researchers-use-actin-to-develop-synthetic-condensates-15345
2021-12-23
NWO-XS grant for compartmentalising synthetic cells!
Very happy to receive the NWO-XS grant! A nice end-of-the-year bonus for the lab. In this project, we want to sub-compartmentalize synthetic cells using some phase separation magic.
2021-10-28
Back-to-back pre-prints on bioRxiv!
Two articles are posted on bioRxiv: one from Ketan on actinosomes: novel biocontainers to build synthetic cells and the other one from Larry on biosensors: using liquid crystal droplets to detect amphiphiles in vitro and in vivo. Well done guys!
2021-08-30
Brand-new course – ABC: About Building Cells – launched!
Super-excited to start a new course in synthetic biology. Trying to give students a feel of what it will take to build a cell…
2021-06-01
Second PhD joins – welcome Chang!
Very happy to see Chang Chen join our group as a PhD student. Welcome Chang and all the best with this new adventure!
2021-05-25
Another review, about doing directed evolution in a microfluidic setting – great collaboration with John van der Oost!
We share the recent advancements on carrying out evolution in a lab-on-a-chip setting, now published in Trends in Biotechnology.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167779921001074
2021-04-21
First (review) paper from the lab! On shaping synthetic cells 🙂
We share our views on how to effectively shape synthetic cells – using condensates as mediators and enhancers for the cytoskeleton functionality and their interactions with membranes.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1359029421000431
2021-01-20
Review on phase separation in confinements
Our brief review about the wonderful world of LLPS in cell-sized confinements is now online!
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1359029421000030
2020-12-21
Build-a-cell seminar
I had a lot of fun talking about our recent research at the build-a-cell seminar organised by Kate Adamala! For those interested, it is not available on YouTube. Enjoy!
2020-12-18
NWO KLEIN
Excited to end the year by receiving the NWO KLEIN grant! That means now we have a fully funded 4-year PhD position available to do some exciting research on cytoskeleton-condensate-membrane interactions!
2020-07-13
Innovation Program Microbiology grant!
Very happy to receive a sweet €50k IPM-3 grant (Innovation Program Microbiology)! Looking forward to some cool experiments involving directed evolution of CRISPR using microfluidics, together with the lab of John van der Oost!
2020-04-16
First postdoc joining soon!
Lawrence Honaker will join the EmBioSys lab in May as a postdoc. Larry recently completed his PhD from Luxembourg in the area of liquid crystals and microfluidics and is keen on exploring new interdisciplinary areas. Welcome Larry, our first postdoc!
2020-04-02
Our paper published in ACS Nano!
Some good news! The last bit of work during my postdoc in Cees Dekker’s lab is now online.
Check it out here: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acsnano.9b10167
Using pH as the controlling parameter, we triggered coacervation inside a population of liposomes. Using this system, we further induced coacervate-membrane interactions using electrostatic and hydrophobic effects.
2020-03-16
First BSc thesis student
Amidst the shutdown, Liza Leijten has started her Bachelor thesis with us. She will be working with Ketan on the dynamic interplay between cytoskeleton and phase separated droplets, starting with some literature study to keep her busy. Welcome Liza!
2020-03-16
Temporary shutdown!
Due to the Corona crisis all over the world, we have no choice but to stop experimenting, at least for the next few weeks! What an unfortunate and unusual situation, hope it does not last that long. Take care everyone!
2020-01-22
The OLA flipbook
We made an OLA flip book for the student thesis market at WUR! Was really fun and greatly appreciated. I think it’s a cool idea that can be used for so many time-lapse microscopy videos!
2019-11-02
The all-important students
A wonderful student army (Mart, Anthony, Marleen, Kasper) that I was lucky to have during the postdoc! Well, only half of it is seen here as Anna, David (Sweden), Sree (Germany), Anson (Canada), and Frank were not at the party. Thank you so much for your contribution and wish you all the best!
2019-11-02
Thank you CD lab!
What a wonderful and a memorable farewell you guys gave me before I am off to Wageningen! Thanks to Cees, my students, and all the present and past lab members for making this such a wonderful journey!
2019-10-04
The first lab member!
My first PhD student, Ketan Ganar, will join on 1st December!
Welcome Ketan! Excited for the first experiments!
2019-10-03
EmBioSys Lab is beginning!!
I am delighted to announce that I will be starting my own lab at the Physical Chemistry and Soft Matter Department at Wageningen University.