There is still time to register for the EngBio Forum on Monday.
It's free to attend with a great speaker line up - Andreas Walther @waltherlab.bsky.social and Claudia Contini @continiclau.bsky.social exploring #SyntheticCells #LifeLikeSystems #EngineeringBiology

🎟️🫱 buytickets.at/engineeringb...

Thanks @syncelleu.bsky.social for highlighting our recent work on DNA receptors at @jacs.acspublications.org! 🧬 🧪 💡

Registration of interest and abstract submission for both oral and poster contributions is now open, with deadline on 23rd of January, 2026.

We will have an amazing and international line-up of invited speakers. The event will discuss the state-of-art and challenges on membrane biophysics and engineering for biology, biotechnology, and synthetic cells.

🚨I am excited to announce the upcoming Designer Membranes and Bio-inspired Interfaces Symposium, taking place at Wolfson College, Cambridge on the 26th and 27th of March 2026.

iop.eventsair.com/dmbi2025/

As promised, we run the town and gown 10k! In the photos are group members @rogerrubiosanchez.bsky.social Juliette Bucci, Brian Ng, Cathrine Fan, Sebastian Krauss and Lorenzo (the old one). Thanks to all who supported us with donations to @mdukcharity.bsky.social

SportsGiving - Entry: Lorenzo Di Michele Lorenzo Di Michele is fundraising for charity. Visit their fundraising page to sponsor them online now!

Hey! Some group members and I are running a 10k race in Cambridge this Sunday, and raining some funds for @mdukcharity.bsky.social

Please donate and share!
@ceb.cam.ac.uk @pembroke1347.bsky.social

sportsgiving.co.uk/sponsorship/...

Check out this new @jacs.acspublications.org paper by @rogerrubiosanchez.bsky.social. Building cation responsive DNA receptors for synthetic cells!

So glad to see this beautiful work out! Got to work with an amazing team and see these small but mighty DNA receptors in action. 🧬

@ceb.cam.ac.uk @syncelleu.bsky.social

Stay tuned for more! Thanks to BBSRC, @royalsociety.org, @erc.europa.eu, NanoDTC, and Wolfson College Cambridge for funding!

Our receptors enabled us to emulate key features of signalling hubs in cell membranes, particularly their functional link to cation messengers. We think that this modular toolkit can help in building advanced synthetic cells, particularly bottom-up signalling pathways!

Finally we use our receptors to localise their peroxidase activity in lipid domains of synthetic cell membranes! We demonstrate this capability with both potassium and calcium as model signalling messengers.

We next apply receptor assembly to host G4-hemin DNAzymes and their catalytic activity on membrane surfaces. By monitoring the production of resorufin, we show that catalytic action depends on receptor relative abundance.

Exploiting the sequence and cation-dependence of G-quadruplex assembly, we show it is possible to finely tune the relative abundance of our receptors using a range of cations (including lithium!). This is a consequence of increased local concentrations when membrane-anchored.

Our receptors are membrane-bound tetramolecular DNA-based nanodevices, assembled via an intermolecular G-quadruplex

Cation-Controlled Assembly, Activity, and Organization of Biomimetic DNA Receptors in Synthetic Cell Membranes Biological cells use cations as signaling messengers to regulate a variety of responses. Linking cations to the functionality of synthetic membranes is thus crucial to engineering advanced biomimetic agents such as synthetic cells. Here, we introduce bioinspired DNA-based receptors that exploit noncanonical G-quadruplexes for cation-actuated structural and functional responses in synthetic lipid membranes. Membrane confinement grants cation-dependent control over receptor assembly and, when supplemented with hemin cofactors, their peroxidase DNAzyme activity. Cation-mediated control extends to receptor lateral distribution to localize DNA-based catalysis within phase-separated membrane domains of model synthetic cells, imitating the localization of multimeric membrane complexes to signaling hubs in living cells. Our modular strategy paves the way for engineering from the bottom-up cation-responsive pathways for sensing, signaling, and communication in synthetic cellular systems.

Really happy to see this published in its final form @jacs.acspublications.org! 🧬 In this paper, we introduce a new class of biomimetic receptors to host functionality in synthetic cell membranes

Elita Peters @dianatanase.bsky.social @dimichelelab1.bsky.social

pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

Super elegant work on DNA-DNA interactions 👇🏼 🧬

Internal Phase Separation in Synthetic DNA Condensates The modular, programmable system of DNA nanostructures developed provides programmatic control over multiphase condensate behavior, enabling mapping onto a predictive Flory-Huggins model. This combin...

Thrilled to share this new Adv. Sci. paper by @dianatanase.bsky.social with Dino Osmanovic @rogerrubiosanchez.bsky.social @laylamalouf.bsky.social @francolab.bsky.social. We demonstrate a modular approach to program internal phase separation in DNA condensates 1/n doi.org/10.1002/advs...

My work on DNA condensates @dimichelelab1.bsky.social is now out! 🧬🎉🍬
A huge thank you to @francolab.bsky.social lab for their invaluable expertise and to everyone in our lab for their insights, feedback, and countless discussions along the way. I’ve learned so much from working with you all!

Very exciting to see this preprint live! Check out @dimichelelab1.bsky.social 🧵 👇🏼 showing how to produce synthetic condensates as ‘designer’ membrane-less organelles inside bacteria using RNA nanotechnology 🧬 ✨

New preprint! 🚨
With Elita Peters @dianatanase.bsky.social @dimichelelab1.bsky.social, we introduce cation-regulated DNA receptors for structural and functional responses in synthetic cells! 🧬 We think they are useful for bottom-up sensing and signalling pathways.

Hope you enjoy the read!

Engineering of dynamic Synthetic Cells at Imperial College London on FindAPhD.com PhD Project - Engineering of dynamic Synthetic Cells at Imperial College London, listed on FindAPhD.com

Fully funded PhD studentship in the group for Home students! Please RT!

www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Fully addressable designer superstructures assembled from one single modular DNA origami - Nature Communications Methods for creating large DNA assemblies with low cost and enhanced structural control are of interest. Here, the authors report moDON (modular DNA origami nanostructure) that combines two approaches...

📣NEW PAPER ALERT ⚠️

Finally out in Nature Communications, after unfortunately spending almost 1 year under review at Nature Materials 🤐
But very very pround of this work that was spearheaded by extremely talented PhD student Moritz Weck:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Beautiful work! Congratulations! 🧬

Job Opportunity at University of Leeds: Research Fellow in Artificial Cell Modification Are you a creative and resourceful researcher looking for your next challenge? Do you have a background in protein engineering and modification? Would you like to be part of an international multidisc...

Research Fellow in Artificial Cell Modification

Particularly suited to applicants with expertise in protein overexpression and purification, peptide synthesis and characterisation of proteins and their conjugates, including mass spectrometry.

jobs.leeds.ac.uk/vacancy.aspx...

PhD alert! I have two ERC-funded PhD positions to uncover the chemical origins of life (Oct 2025). *UK fees only*. Projects described here: www.lclu.cam.ac.uk/studentship-...
Email me if interested - deadline (PhD in Biochemistry, Uni of Cambridge): Jan 7th!
Please share within your networks!

EASTBIO-Investigating phosphoinositide acyl chain composition as a novel regulator of T cell signalling during ageing at University of Edinburgh on FindAPhD.com PhD Project - EASTBIO-Investigating phosphoinositide acyl chain composition as a novel regulator of T cell signalling during ageing at University of Edinburgh, listed on FindAPhD.com

If you’re interested in immune cell metabolism I’m recruiting for a PhD student. Deadline: 17th Jan. Start date: Sept 2025. Informal discussion always welcome.

www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Great talks by Juliette Bucci @cebcambridge.bsky.social and Honghao Su @honghaosu.bsky.social @plantscience.bsky.social at our EngBio ECR Meetup today. We hope to see you at next meetup 20 Jan 👉 www.tickettailor.com/events/engin...

Particle Microfluidics Group Now Recruiting

#Phd project available to join my group and @drmikebooth.bsky.social group at @uclchemistry.bsky.social on the #CDT in #Engineering Solutions for #Antimicrobial #Resistance to work on electrokinetic and nucleic acid technology for lateral flow assays (shorturl.at/mCozh)

App Deadline: 26/01/25