Was a pleasure to report on our synthetic immunology approach and how we use synthetic cells to improve immunotherapy 🎧

New paper out in NatureComm: We built synthetic immune cells that self-assemble with cancer cells into hybrid tumoroids, enabling bottom-up reconstruction of the tumor immune microenvironment.
rdcu.be/eUmRM

@leibnizinm.bsky.social

Synthetic Cell‐Based Tissues for Bottom‐Up Assembly of Artificial Lymphatic Organs Synthetic cells have emerged as a novel biomimetic approach for fundamental research and therapeutic interventions. T cell activating synthetic cells are able to form 3D tissue-like structures by sel....

Building tissues from the bottom up!

In Advanced Healthcare Materials @wiley.com, @ostaufer.bsky.social and co-authors show synthetic cells forming lymph-node-like tissues that host immune cells -towards building synthetic organs.

doi.org/10.1002/adhm...

#academicsky 🧪

New Faculty Members from October 2025 Matter to Life welcomes 18 new Fellows, enhancing innovative research and mentorship opportunities for PhD candidates starting this October.

🌱 New beginnings, fresh faces!
As our pilot phase wraps up, the school is ready to grow and thrive. We’re thrilled to welcome 18 new fellows to the #MatterToLife Faculty 🎉 Each brings exciting perspectives from across interdisciplinary research. mattertolife.maxplanckschools.org/355008/new-f...

Congrats to Saarbrücken researchers!

Prof. Karin Jacobs, Prof. Franziska Lautenschläger & @ostaufer.bsky.social join the Max Planck School Matter to Life as Fellows, strengthening biophysics & soft matter research in Germany.

#academicsky #science

Apply now to join my group as a postdoctoral Fellow at @imperialcollege

We are supporting applications for:
- Imperial College Research Fellowship
-Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowships

Get in touch: continilab.com
#SoftMatter, #CellMimicry #polymerchemistry

New paper from the Staufer Lab - Immuno Materials, a group that seeks to build immunity from the bottom-up

Solution structure and synaptic analyses reveal determinants of bispecific T cell engager potency | PNAS Bispecific T cell engagers (TcEs) link T cell receptors to tumor-associated antigens on cancer cells, forming cytotoxic immunological synapses (IS)...

Excited to share our new @pnas.org paper! We used reconstitution approaches and synthetic cells to uncover what drives bispecific T cell engagers efficiency. This helps future #immunotherapy design and demonstrates the potential of synthetic cells in #immunoengineering:
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Plasma membrane labelling efficiency, internalization and partitioning of functionalized fluorescent lipids as a function of lipid structure Labeling the plasma membrane for advanced imaging remains a significant challenge. For time-lapse live cell imaging, probe internalization and photobleaching are major limitations affecting most membr...

New paper out! Would you like to fluorescently label the plasma membrane in live, fixed or permeabilized cells? I tested different lipid structures and labelling approaches to decide what makes a good membrane labelling probe for such imaging experiments!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Very happy to have you onboard Marion!

We have an exciting new PhD opportunity!

If you are fsacinated by proteins and their dynamics and want to engineer them to develop new molecular tools: apply now!
We are a young and dynamic team combining state-of-the-art laboratory and bioinformatics approaches.
Please share.

#newPI and time is running.

It has already been a month since I officially joined the University of Warwick as Assistant Professor. I am excited to announce and build the Fluorescence and Membrane Dynamics (FMD) Lab:

warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/med/...

Material Minds 10 is out!
We talk to Phil Egberts, Prof. at @ucalgary.bsky.social and INM alum. He shares how his journey in materials science began with salt crystals, led him to Germany, and eventually landed in the world of friction & lubrication.
Full episode here - youtu.be/Me1rwvf9-XQ?...

Lightfield 4D: Instant volumetric imaging of a beating embryonic zebrafish heart Courtesy of Stone Elworthy and Emily Noël, School of Biosciences, University of Sheffield, UK

Zeiss has released its light field microscope!

zeiss.wistia.com/medias/otnxx...

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...

New paper from the lab🎈. Introducing Micro Immune Response On-chip (MIRO), a device that replicates tumors and their microenvironment to better understand responses to immunotherapies (cyan=immune cells, red=cancer, green=CAFs).
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
@ibecbarcelona.eu

🚨Three weeks left to apply for this #fullyfunded #PhDopportunity in my group! 🚨
Are you an UK-Home student interest in #SyntheticCells science?
We are looking for you!

@imperialcollegeldn.bsky.social @imperiallifesci.bsky.social @imperialsci.bsky.social

More than 40% of postdocs leave academia, study reveals Publishing highly cited papers helps postdoctoral researchers to land a faculty job.

More than 40 percent of #postdocs leave academia. Those who landed a coveted faculty position were more likely to have had a highly cited paper, changed their research topic between their #PhD and postdoc, or moved abroad after receiving their doctorate. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... @pnas.org

A flyer for the MBL's 2025 Physiology course

🔔Upcoming deadline!🔔

January 27 is the last day to submit applications to the MBL's 2025 Physiology Course. This seven-week lab course has educated generations of leading biologists and fostered groundbreaking discoveries.

Learn more: bit.ly/3BZSj9c
#ScienceStartsHere

🇩🇪In unserem nächsten #PoLComic geht es darum, wie hydrophobe und hydrophile Moleküle unseren Zellen helfen, richtig zu funktionieren.

Vollständige Version hier: physics-of-life.tu-dresden.de/news-events/...

Comic von Jon Chad: www.jonchad.com
#Biophysik #Wissenschaftskommunikation #Forschung

Synthetic cells in tissue engineering Tissue functions rely on complex structural, biochemical, and biomechanical cues that guide cellular behavior and organization. Synthetic cells, a pro…

Hello BlueSky 👋 Happy to start here by sharing our lastest review on synthetic cells in tissue engineering. Great concepts presented by the amazing PhD students Anna Burgstaller and Sara Madureira

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

#SynCells #tissueengineering #biomimetics #biomaterials #SynBio