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SUMMARY:RSC Prizewinner's Talk: Microfluidics and engineered biomembranes 
 as enabling technologies in synthetic cell design   - Dr. Yuval Elani\, De
 partment of Chemical Engineering\, Imperial College London
DTSTART:20241205T140000Z
DTEND:20241205T150000Z
UID:TALK220450@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Sharon Connor
DESCRIPTION:Synthetic cells (SynCells) are bioinspired micromachines const
 ructed from molecular building blocks\, mimicking the form and function of
  biological cells. They are increasingly used as both simplified cell mode
 ls and engineered microdevices\, offering broad applications in industrial
  and clinical biotechnology. Despite their promise\, SynCells are structur
 ally simplistic\, primarily consisting of spherical liposomes\, unlike the
 ir biological counterparts.  Given that form and function are intertwined\
 , this lack of architectural complexity restricts the development of more 
 sophisticated behaviours.  In this talk\, I will discuss our recent effort
 s to overcome these limitations by employing microfluidic assembly lines f
 or SynCell production\, enabling the creation of a wide repertoire of SynC
 ell architectures [1][2]. We harness this increased complexity to create a
  new generation of SynCells with biomimetic behaviours\, most notably thos
 e capable of detecting external stimuli (including as temperature\, light\
 , and magnetic fields) and initiating a biochemical response [3][4][5]. Ad
 ditionally\, we have recently expanded our toolkit to access the nano-regi
 me\, allowing us to construct nano-organelles for multi-stage release of d
 ifferent payloads at defined time points and to develop attolitre bio-reac
 tors for in situ biochemical synthesis [6].\n\n1.	Ioannou\, Ion A.\, et al
 . "Nucleated synthetic cells with genetically driven intercompartment comm
 unication." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 121.36 (2024):
  e2404790121.\n2.	Zubaite\, Greta\, et al. "Dynamic reconfiguration of sub
 compartment architectures in artificial cells." ACS nano 16.6 (2022): 9389
 -9400.\n3.	Monck\, Carolina et al. "Genetically programmed synthetic cells
  for thermo-responsive protein synthesis and cargo release." Nature Chemic
 al Biology (2024): doi.org/10.1038/s41589-024-01673-7 \n4.	Zhu\, Karen K.\
 , et al. "Magnetic Modulation of Biochemical Synthesis in Synthetic Cells.
 " Journal of the American Chemical Society 146.19 (2024): 13176-13182.\n5.
 	Gispert\, Ignacio\, et al. "Stimuli-responsive vesicles as distributed ar
 tificial organelles for bacterial activation." Proceedings of the National
  Academy of Sciences 119.42 (2022): e2206563119.\n6.	Pilkington\, Colin P.
 \, et al. "Engineering a nanoscale liposome-in-liposome for in situ bioche
 mical synthesis and multi-stage release." Nature Chemistry (2024): doi.org
 /10.1038/s41557-024-01584-z\n7.	Allen\, Matthew E.\, et al. "Hydrogels as 
 functional components in artificial cell systems." Nature Reviews Chemistr
 y 6.8 (2022): 562-578.\n
LOCATION:Dept. of Chemistry\, Pfizer Lecture Theater
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