Abstract

Biological membranes must tightly regulate the lateral distribution of inclusions to facilitate the key functionalities they host, ranging from signal transduction to molecular trafficking and cellular motion. Bottom-up synthetic biology aims to replicate behaviours usually observed in living matter in cell-like objects called “artificial cells”, so to deepen our understanding of biological processes as well as to unlock promised technological applications in biomedicine, biosynthesis, and bioremediation. Exploiting the tools of self-assembly, chemical nanotechnology, and membrane biophysics, my research uses DNA molecules to build two- and three-dimensional nano-scaled architectures that can replicate the structure and function of membrane proteins, allowing us to engineer functionality in the lipid membrane of artificial cells.