Team – EmBioSys Lab

Principal Investigator

Siddharth Deshpande, PhD

Assistant Professor (siddharth.deshpande(at)wur.nl)

Pune – Bremen – Basel – Delft – Wageningen

I am an interdisciplinary scientist fascinated by living systems and curious to understand how biomolecules self-organize to form functional modules necessary for life. My interests lie in biological soft matter, self-organization, bioengineering, and on-chip microfluidics. I thoroughly enjoy interacting with students, the process of designing experiments, and the thrill of unexpected discoveries.

After obtaining my bachelor’s degree in microbiology from University of Pune, India, I moved to Germany for a master’s degree in biochemistry and molecular biology from University of Bremen. Eventually, I obtained my PhD in biophysics from University of Basel, Switzerland. A postdoctoral position in the lab of Cees Dekker at Delft University of Technology marked my long-term transition to the Netherlands. Since 2019, I am a group leader at Wageningen University. The broad vision of my lab is to tackle unsolved biological questions through appropriate bottom-up/biomimetic systems and create soft matter-based materials with biotechnological potential.

Core members

Chang Chen, M. Tech

PhD student

Huangshan – Harbin – Shenzhen – Beijing – Wageningen

I am an open-minded, cross-disciplinary researcher, interested in building and understanding the natural systems at cellular level. By developing lab-on-chip devices, I am interested in creating cell-mimicking, simplified mechanical models. Based on my previous experience with microfluidics and soft matter, I will study the interplay between the active actomyosin cytoskeleton, phase-separated liquid condensates, and the deformable lipid membrane.

Xuefeng Shen, M. Tech

PhD student (co-supervised with Jasper van der Gucht)

Lianyungang – Zhenjiang – Jinju – Changzhou – Wageningen

I am a multidisciplinary researcher and curious to explore the mysteries and potentials of natural world. My research interests focus on fluid dynamics, soft matter physics and rheology. In addition to my previous experience in multiphase fluid dynamics of complex fluids, I will try to fill the knowledge gap of coalescence mechanisms of Pickering emulsion droplets by using cutting-edge techniques like microfluidics, optical tweezing and confocal microscopy.

Udit Ghosh, Integrated BS-MS

PhD student (part of the MSCA doctoral network SIGSYNCELL)

Guwahati – Kolkata – Barcelona – Wageningen

Understanding how cells compartmentalize at the subcellular level to facilitate biochemical reactions has long been my interest. With experience in molecular and cell biology, synthetic biology, and microscopy, I aim to address intracellular communication through designer membraneless organelles within cell-like assemblies. The idea is to generate multiple, functional, condensate-basesd compartments within synthetic cells to drive independent enzymatic reactions. The bigger picture could potentially further our understanding of the dynamic yet specific nature of sub-compartments in natural cells.