Recent highlights:
Received seed funding from the SynGen Center to explore synthetic genomes in bottom-up synthetic biology. 🚀
The first work of my PhD is now published:
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
Huge thanks to Franziska Gießler, Tobias Abele, Stefan Maurer, and @kgoepfrich.bsky.social
Next up, the great Kerstin Göpfrich @kgoepfrich.bsky.social @zmbh.uni-heidelberg.de on her long-term vision of synthetic cells, and very concrete approaches using RNA origami.
#gfv2026
Still time to apply until January, 19th!
We are recruiting a tenure track professor in the broader area of molecular biology @zmbh.uni-heidelberg.de at Heidelberg University! www.nature.com/naturecareer... Please share and apply!
New to RNA design? Please try pyFuRNAce! Looking forward to your feedback 🧬
Is it possible to engineer new cellular life from the bottom up?
The Göpfrich group @kgoepfrich.bsky.social @mpi-mr.bsky.social have designed an RNA origami nanotube 🟡 to mimic the cytoskeleton:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
It was a fun challenge to animate T7 RNA polymerase 🔵
#blender #b3d
Welcome, Dana!
Curious about RNA, aptamers, lipid membranes, molecular dynamics simulations, synthetic cells - and how these topics come together? Join @floppleton.bsky.social's talk in the unano webinar blogs.ed.ac.uk/unanowebinars
RNA droplets that grow and segregate by ribozyme catalysis. Check out our latest preprint www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.29.673008v1
@tranmai.bsky.social handed in her PhD thesis! Celebrating in style with egg coffee from Hanoi, Mai's place of birth. P.S.: Mai is looking for a PostDoc position! Check out her latest RNA nanostructures for synthetic cells @natnano.nature.com doi.org/10.1038/s415...
DNA hydrogels as mechanical sensors in cell-culture systems by @towalther.bsky.social 🧬🧬🧬
If you catch him at a conference bar, ask him the story, it’s an adventure and a half!
EMBL Cell Biology and Biophysics department is searching for a new director. A major position to lead this field in Europe and beyond.
embl.wd103.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/EMBL/j...
So excited to finally be able to share this manuscript!! Thanks to all collaborators for making this possible! Special thanks to @kgoepfrich.bsky.social and @xaviertrepat.bsky.social for their guidance and supervision in this!
Preprint by @towalther.bsky.social at al! We design DNA hydrogel microparticles with sequence-controlled stiffness from 30 Pa to 6.5 kPa. They are remodelled in fibroblast spheroids www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Thanks @ibecbarcelona.eu @xaviertrepat.bsky.social @pcusachs.bsky.social
Screenshot der ersten halben Seite des im Post verlinkten Print-Artikels mit Überschrift "Künstliche Cytoskelette aus RNA-Origami" sowie Vorspann und einigen Textzeilen. Zentral das Foto einer Konfokalmikroskopie von Cytoskelett-ähnlichen RNA-Origami-Nanoröhrchen.
Leben aus toter Materie zu erschaffen ist ein zentrales Thema der Synthetischen Biologie. @kgoepfrich.bsky.social et al. liefern dazu RNA-Origami-Strukturen, die sich selbst organisieren und eine cytoskelettartige Architektur aufbauen. Holger Dill berichtet mehr: www.laborjournal.de/rubric/journ...
📢Conference alert📢
Only one week left to register for the Engineering Life 2025 Symposium at Dresden September 1-3. This year's edition focuses on the function of mechanical forces in biology.
engineering-life-dresden.de
#SCNAC2025 we are looking forward to hear about your thoughts on our RNA design tool #PyFuRNAce pyfurnace.streamlit.app developed by @monari-luca.bsky.social
Good, well educated PhD student
I watched too many traction force microscopy talks - maybe that community recognizes the characteristic move!
I am excited to be talking to @neildegrassetyson.com soon! What should I tell him from his German fan community?
Thank you! Lots of new synbio funded in Germany with Biosystem Design in Munich, Microbes for Climate in Marburg and SynthImmune in Heidelberg, I think that's a win for the field as a whole - following Evolve in the Netherlands!
News on clusters of excellence in Germany. The DFG has announced the continuation of 45 projects already funded and 25 new clusters
Congrats to the SynCellEU community members - Kerstin Gopfrich, Tobias Erb and more - whose applications have been successful and who will receive funding for 7 years
A nice thread on our recent paper in Nature Nanotechnology by the first author and PhD student from the group @tranmai.bsky.social 👇
#SynthImmune is getting real! Super excited that our excellence cluster got funded today @dfg.de Thanks to everyone involved @uniheidelberg.bsky.social, especially @dimichelelab1.bsky.social and Oliver Fackler!
New technology challenges communication inside and outside the classroom, as my recent paper explains. Fingers crossed we get to explore this question soon for emerging synthetic biotechnology within SynthImmune
www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10....
Our PIs Kerstin (@kgoepfrich.bsky.social) and Michael (@meineckelab.bsky.social) joined Wolfgang Heim to talk about scientific CVs, engaging in public outreach and the wonders of cellular membrane remodelling. Don’t miss the SFB1638 edition of Überlebensstrategien — now streaming!
On the show, we also talk about the potential of bottom up synthetic biology approaches for immunology - the aim of our excellence cluster SynthImmune (in German). We hope to get funded!
Awesome, congrats! Looking forward to take this further together, hopefully within our excellence cluster SynthImmune - fingers crossed for 22nd May!
The SynthImmune project by Heidelberg University& partner institutes advances a "bottom-up" synthetic biology approach to immunotherapies.
Hoping they do well in the German government's Excellence Strategy—anticipating the announcement on 22 May.
Perspective article: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
An exciting new approach in single-cell metabolomics from two SFB1638 groups! Carsten Hopf’s group from CeMOS with support from the Göpfrich lab (@kgoepfrich.bsky.social) unveil tech that tracks brain cell changes linked to neurodegeneration.
advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
