PhD Position in Microfluidics for Assembly of Synthetic Cells for Energy Production, Nutrient M[...]

The deMello Group in the Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences at ETH Zürich, a world‑leading group for the development of novel microfluidic technologies, is looking for a motivated PhD student in cutting‑edge research in microfluidics and synthetic biology.

Project background

Living systems rely on continuous energy conversion to maintain vital functions, transforming external energy sources into biochemical units like ATP and NAD(P)H to power metabolic processes. One approach to understanding this complexity is to reconstruct a cell from scratch using a minimal set of components, i.e., to build a synthetic cell. In synthetic biology, micrometer‑sized lipid vesicles can serve as artificial cells, providing a platform to reconstruct and manipulate essential biological functions. However, current methods to generate giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs) face challenges such as size heterogeneity, inefficient membrane protein reconstitution, and lim...