ERC Starting Grant worth over 2M Euros awarded to the University of Trieste for Pierangelo Gobbo’s project PROTOMAT

The University of Trieste has been awarded its first ERC Starting Grant by the European Research Council (ERC) as part of the Horizon Europe framework. Pierangelo Gobbo, having worked in various institutions around the world, has chosen the University of Trieste (UniTS) to develop the first fully synthetic cells capable of integrating with living cells and tissues.

Colloidosomes as a Protocell Model: Engineering Life-Like Behaviour through Organic Chemistry

Colloidosomes are robust, versatile microcapsules that have emerged as promising candidates for protocell models. Read our just published review that highlights the role of organic chemistry in the engineering of colloidosomes with life-like behaviours, such as selective membrane permeability, adhesion, chemical signalling, dynamic multi-compartmentalisation, replication, and predation.

Automated Analysis of Soft Material Microindentation

Our RSC Soft Matter article is now published. The work describes the validation of a new method for the automated analysis of thousands of indentation curves for the 3D mapping of the mechanical properties of soft materials. The work was carried out in collaboration with Dr. Sebastien Rochat and Prof. Richard Trask at the University of Bristol, and funded by the EU Marie Curie Actions and the UK's EPSRC.

Funding available for a PhD scholarship on synthetic tissues

Applications are invited for a PhD studentship to work in the Gobbo Group in the School of Chemistry at the University of Bristol. The position is for UK/EU student and is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), with funding for 42 months. The starting date is October 2020, and the research aims to implement the first synthetic tissues with collective information-processing functions.