Late Night Conference with Wilhelm Huck – Josh Bongard

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The Late Night Conference with Wilhelm Huck is back again on Thursday 17th March, 20h00 CET!

 

This third episode of season 2 of the Late Night Conference with Wilhelm Huck will be streamed live on our YouTube channel Late Night Conference with WH (don’t forget to subscribe & watch our previous exciting episodes!) from Theaterzaal C, where we are excited to have you in our audience!! Get your free ticket here to watch the show LIVE*. Please pay attention – no ticket is needed if you only want to watch the stream on YouTube!

With us will be Josh Bongard , Professor of Computer Science at the University of Vermont and director of the Morphology, Evolution & Cognition Laboratory, who will be guiding us through his fantastic research on Xenobots!

 

What would life look like on other worlds? Harnessing ideas from evolutionary biology, Josh Bongard and his team have evolved virtual creatures on the computer to not only study this curious question, but also to engineer better and more adaptive robots in real life. By creating multiple virtual worlds each with their own forms of artificial life, unique phylogenetic trees emerge to give us a glimpse into the wonders of evolution! Taking this concept further, Josh and his collaborators have engineered soft robots using frog cells (Xenobots) whose 3D structure was inspired by virtual robots. Amazingly, these Xenobots can move and assemble new versions of themselves!

 

Also don’t miss out our second episode of this exciting season. You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram, as well as subscribe to our mailing list for the latest updates.

*corona rules permitting

Trip to Burgers’ Zoo

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In February our new Social Activities Committee organised a trip to the Burgers’ Zoo. We waved to elephants, Roelroels, sea lions and many other animals!

Attention to all chemistry students in Ukraine

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Reaching out to all chemistry students (MSc or Phd level) in the Ukraine. If you are working on a topic related to (physical) organic chemistry, analytical chemistry, or biotechnology, Prof. Wilhelm Huck can offer a 6-month research visit to his lab in the Netherlands. We will cover all your expenses, and provide you with all necessary facilities to continue your studies and research.
Get in touch to see how we can help.

Late Night Conference with Wilhelm Huck – John Glass

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We are excited to share that our second episode of the second season of the Late Night Conference will not only be streamed on YouTube, but also have a live audience in Theatrezaal C!

This time our guest is John Glass!

John Glass
Professor of Synthetic Biology, J. Craig Venter Institute

As professor and leader of the JCVI Synthetic Biology Group, John Glass pushes the boundaries of synthetic biology. Dr. Glass was part of the team responsible for creating the famous synthetic bacterial cell, Synthia. With an expertise at the intersection of molecular biology, microbial pathogenesis, RNA virology and microbial genomics, he has led numerous society-changing projects over the course of his career. Some of which include the development of a synthetic influenza, as well as creating cells and organelles with redesigned genomes to engineer microbes to make useful products. This lecture is not to be missed!

Watch the episode live on YouTube Thursday 10 February 2022, 20.00-21.00 CET.

ERC Proof of Concept Grant for Prof. Wilhelm Huck

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We are happy to announce that Prof. Wilhelm Huck has been awarded an ERC Proof of Concept (PoC) Grant for his research on “Commercial feasibility of a cell-free reactor setup for optimisation of complex enzymatic pathways”!

Read more about it here and here.

Build a Cell seminar by Roel Maas

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Yesterday (7 February, 2022) Roel Maas presented his and Bob van Sluijs’ work about a new pipeline for the characterization of cell-free synthetic genetic networks at the Build a Cell seminar series. In this pipeline a combination of microfluidics, optimal experimental design and database fitting is used to tackle the modularity problem in forward engineering of synthetic genetic networks.

Interested and want to know more? You can rewatch the seminar here.

Dr. van Buijtenen

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Yesterday (27 January, 2022) Erik van Buijtenen successfully defended his PhD thesis entitled “Towards multiomic single-cell analysis of immune cells”.

 

Congratulations Dr. Erik!

Leonardo Morini – new PhD student

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Leonardo obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Biotechnology in 2018 and his Master’s degree in Molecular and Cell Biology in 2021 at University of Bologna, as a member of Collegio Superiore. For his Master thesis, he worked for one year in the group of Bacterial Genetics at Wageningen University & Research, focusing on CRISPR/Cas9, DNA repair mechanisms and alternative sigma factors. In late 2021, he started his PhD in the Huck group as part of the BaSyC research programme (Building a Synthetic Cell). His project focuses on gene expression and on how this is affected by different types of compartments and physical constraints. In his free time, he enjoys playing guitar, drums, sports and traveling.

Welcome Leonardo to the group!

Thijs de Jong – new PhD student

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Thijs de Jong got his Master degree in Chemistry of Life at the Radboud University in 2021, during which he started in the Huck group for an internship. After his Master’s he is now continuing in the same lab as a PhD candidate. Thijs is interested in studying how chemical systems can be used to process information, currently he is researching how the complex chemistry in the prebiotic formose reaction could be used for reservoir computing. Outside of the lab he enjoys cooking, reading, hiking and he is a volunteer at Scouting.

Welcome to the group!

Late Night Conference with Wilhelm Huck – Hans Clevers

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The Late Night Conference is back in 2022! As always, you will also be able to get involved at home with our trademark, Wilhelm Huck-hosted, live streaming action. Now, we’re exploring ‘Artificial Life’. We’ve got this covered from every angle. Synthetic cells, artificial intelligence and responsive robots.

We are excited to introduce the first guest – Hans Clevers.

Hans Clevers
Professor of Molecular Genetics, Utrecht University

  • Spinoza prize, Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), 2001
  • Heineken prize for Medicine, Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen (KNAW), 2012
  • Breakthrough prize in Life Sciences, 2013

Hans Clevers’ research origins began in studying the stem-cells of the intestines. These cells are especially relevant for the development of diseases, such as cancer. Clevers’ and his team identified the intestinal stem-cells involved in the renewal of the outermost layer of the organ, called epithelium, and with this, managed to grow these cells into artificial mini-intestines, so called organoids. These organoids are useful research tools for studying a variety of phenomena – from basic developmental and cell biology to toxicology, as well as hereditary diseases, and cancer.

Watch the episode live on YouTube Thursday 6 January 2022, 20.00-21.00 CET.