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Reposted by Job Boekhoven

Max Planck School Matter to Life @mattertolife.bsky.social · Jul 25

How to build life from non-living components? Or perhaps a blueprint of #MatterToLife!
syntheticcell.eu/a-recipe-for...
Check out the recent study from @boekhovenlab.bsky.social and @hniederho.bsky.social, @tum.de
www.cell.com/chem/fulltex...

A recipe for synthetic cells: non-biological components, a pinch of evolution and then... life?

The Boekhoven Lab recently engineered a cell-like system capable of producing offspring, a key prerequisite for Darwinian evolution.

syntheticcell.eu

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Reposted by Job Boekhoven

European Synthetic Cell Initiative @syncelleu.bsky.social · Jul 28

The @boekhovenlab.bsky.social aims to build life from non-living components using #evolution. We look back at one of the group's recent results: the engineering of cell-like systems capable of producing offspring, a key prerequisite for Darwinian evolution
#syncell

syntheticcell.eu/a-recipe-for...

A recipe for synthetic cells: non-biological components, a pinch of evolution and then... life?

The Boekhoven Lab recently engineered a cell-like system capable of producing offspring, a key prerequisite for Darwinian evolution.

syntheticcell.eu

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Reposted by Job Boekhoven

João Borges @joao-borges.bsky.social · Jun 6

🗣️ @boekhovenlab.bsky.social is Associate Professor in the Bioscience Department at the @tumunich.bsky.social 🇩🇪

🎯 His research focuses on #molecular #selfassembly and #non-#equilibrium #chemically fueled #supramolecular #assemblies towards #synthetic #life from the bottom up 👌

👉 Do not miss it!

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Reposted by Job Boekhoven

Giulio Ragazzon @giuliosflask.bsky.social · Jun 5

Pumping molecules against a gradient without a pump?

Back-to-back with @boekhovenlab.bsky.social, we describe minimal systems that use chemical energy to transport molecules against a concentration gradient.

It started with a little shock!🧵

Us: shorturl.at/smQNF
Job's team: shorturl.at/zftps

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Job Boekhoven @boekhovenlab.bsky.social · May 30

I'm very grateful for the smooth collaboration and funding by the @erc.europa.eu, the ORIGINS cluster, and the Max Planck School @mattertolife.bsky.social .

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Job Boekhoven @boekhovenlab.bsky.social · May 30

In future work, we will endow them with replicators as a genotype. That way, the "mother" droplet passes on information molecules to the next generation. That work is under review here:
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Genotype-Phenotype Coupling in Fuel-Dependent Synthetic Cells with an Autocatalyst

The central dogma of molecular biology describes how genotype affects phenotype through the transfer of genetic information from DNA to RNA to proteins, influen

papers.ssrn.com

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Job Boekhoven @boekhovenlab.bsky.social · May 30

The offspring is short-lived without fuel. But we can save them by timing our refueling right.
Together with Henrike Niederholtmeyer's team, we built microfluidic devices enabling us to refuel the next generation and keep them "alive".

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Job Boekhoven @boekhovenlab.bsky.social · May 30

When the droplets contain both long and short polymers, the long polymers aggregate into the tiny speckles—the future offspring. As the droplet runs out of fuel, it decays and spits out the next generation.

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Job Boekhoven @boekhovenlab.bsky.social · May 30

We developed fuel-dependent synthetic cells—droplets that require fuel to emerge and sustain themselves. When you forget to feed them, they will decay.

We have now figured out how they can produce offspring.

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Job Boekhoven @boekhovenlab.bsky.social · May 30

Check out Monika's work published in @cp-chem.bsky.social!

We’ve engineered synthetic cells that emerge, grow, and produce offspring autonomously, powered by chemical fuel. A significant stride towards synthetic life!

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

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Job Boekhoven @boekhovenlab.bsky.social · Apr 28

Yup. even droplets can’t escape gravity.

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Job Boekhoven @boekhovenlab.bsky.social · Apr 26

We mean to say that if droplets fuse or ripen, their total surface area and thus total surface energy decreases.

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Job Boekhoven @boekhovenlab.bsky.social · Apr 25

Super grateful for the longstanding collaboration with
@m-pol.bsky.social and the hard work by Judit Sastre and Advait Thatte!

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Job Boekhoven @boekhovenlab.bsky.social · Apr 25

Excitingly, when we allow the droplets to fuse, the emulsion starts oscillations between periods of small and large droplets.
Tiny droplets rain down and fuse at the bottom. There, the large droplets shrink and new tiny droplets nucleate on top.

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Job Boekhoven @boekhovenlab.bsky.social · Apr 25

If influx scales with surface area and efflux with volume, tiny droplets grow and big ones should shrink.

That's exactly what we see in the experiments. Droplets adjust their size until they are all the same size.

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Job Boekhoven @boekhovenlab.bsky.social · Apr 25

We built "active" droplets to test a hypothesis: Chemical reactions can regulate droplet size.

In our active droplets, molecules are activated outside the droplet, while deactivated in the droplet.

That way, influx scales with surface area and efflux scales with volume.

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Job Boekhoven @boekhovenlab.bsky.social · Apr 25

Cells have organelles that have no membrane. They are simply droplets. There's a problem, though.
Droplets like to fuse together and ripen to become one large droplet. They do so to decrease their surface area.

How do cells prevent this and keep many droplets?

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Job Boekhoven @boekhovenlab.bsky.social · Apr 25

How can a cell control the size of its organelles?

Excited to share a mechanism to control droplet size we recently found.

a 🧵

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

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Reposted by Job Boekhoven

Mesoscopic Physics of Life (MPoL) @m-pol.bsky.social · Mar 19

Our group Mesoscopic Physics of Life is now on BlueSky. Hopefully no more strange and unwanted messages ... 😆

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Reposted by Job Boekhoven

Technische Universität München @tum.de · Mar 12

Our university is among the top 20 universities in the world for the first time in both #NaturalSciences and #engineering & #technology in the QS World University Rankings by Subject: go.tum.de/639382 🎉

#QSWUR #SubjectRankings #HigherEducation

📷A. Eckert

TUM among the top 20 worldwide in natural sciences and engineering

In the QS World University Rankings by Subject, TUM is among the top 20 universities in both natural sciences and engineering & technology.

go.tum.de

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Reposted by Job Boekhoven

Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften (BAdW) @badw.de · Feb 28

#JungesKolleg: Die neuen Mitglieder stehen fest!

Christoph Heilig @lmumuenchen.bsky.social, Maik Luu @Uniklinik Würzburg, Carolin Müller @fau.de, Robert J. Mayer @tum.de und Charlotte Wendland @lmumuenchen.bsky.social

👉 tiny.badw.de/rPTXJE

Willkommen in der BAdW!

Foto: @wolf-bild.bsky.social

Kollegiatinnen und Kollegialen des Jungen Kollegs der BAdW

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Job Boekhoven @boekhovenlab.bsky.social · Feb 27

Check out the video highlight of our recent work! youtube.com/shorts/MCJEb...

It looks like life, but… | Headline Science

YouTube video by American Chemical Society

youtube.com

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Job Boekhoven @boekhovenlab.bsky.social · Feb 7

It’s out!😃
2 years ago, I organized a workshop with @WebersGroup and @KGoepfrich on how to build Life.
We discussed with leading scientists by day and wrote up our discussions in the eves.

The "Roadmap Towards Synthetic Life" is now out in Chem!

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

A roadmap toward the synthesis of life

The synthesis of life from non-living matter has captivated and divided scientists for centuries. This bold goal aims at unraveling the fundamental pr…

www.sciencedirect.com

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Job Boekhoven @boekhovenlab.bsky.social · Feb 5

Just arrived in the beautiful Tarragona. Excited to give a lecture at the amazing ICIQ tomorrow. iciq.org/event/regula...

Regulating molecular assembly with chemical fuels— Spinning ribbons, dissipative structures, and an approach towards synthetic life - ICIQ

iciq.org

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Job Boekhoven @boekhovenlab.bsky.social · Feb 5

Excited to give a lecture this Friday at the University of Barcelona. More info here:
dqio.ub.edu

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