We are recruiting PhD students in all areas of the group’s research activities, to start in October 2024.
There is one PDRA position available for a start in September 2024.
Please get in touch directly at y.elani@imperial.ac.uk if interested.
November 2023 - Well done to various group members who have published stellar papers in recent months, including Matt’s PNAS paper (featured in a press release and a news article from Nautilus), and Colin’s Sci. Rep paper. Well done to all co-authors from the group including Nacho, Hannah C, and Nina!
November 2023 - Lucy presented her work at the SynBioUK conference in Bristol
November 2023 - Matt Allen was awarded an EPSRC Doctoral Prize Fellowship to build on his fantastic PhD work.
October 2023 - Yuval edited a special edition of Interface Focus, on Synthetic Cells , featuring papers from the Royal Society Conference on this topic held in November 2022. This includes a perspective piece published by the group - What it means to be alive: a synthetic cell perspective
October 2023 - Hannah Cooke was awarded a prestigious internship at the Royal Institution, helping to deliver their Christmas lectures. Well done Hannah!
October 2023 - We welcome new postdoc Roberto Di Blasi, and new PhD students Harry Lowe, Josh Christopher and Bradley Diggines into the group.
September 2023 - The group attended a research away day with close collabs in the Ceroni and Polizzi group, followed by a curry. Thanks Nacho for organising!
July 2023 - Nacho helped deliver the Cold Spring Harbour Engineering Biology Workshop
July 2023 - Well done Fede for winning multiple prizes for her posters and talks, including at the PG symposium!
July 2023 - Annual tradition: pizza in the park !
May 2023 - Various group members, including Ion, Matt and Hannah present their work at the SynCell conference in Minnesota.
April 2023 - The group were part of a team awarded an MSCA Doctoral Network on Signalling in Synthetic Cells. The programme will begin in Sept 2024.
April 2023 - Yuval gave talks on the group’s research at the LMS Converging on Cancer Event and the Imperial FoE showcase
April 2023 - The group was awarded two BBSRC grants to pursue collaborations with Japanese partners on bioinspired technologies together with Di Michele (Cambridge), as well as an Excellence Fund for Frontier Impact Research grant together with Ceroni and Polizzi (Imperial)
March 2023 - Well done to Aileen for securing a fellowship to visit Japan for 12 months on a collaborative trip to Tomo Matsuura’s lab. Have fun in Tokyo!
March 2023 - Well done Greta and Nacho for passing their PhD vivas! They are the first PhD graduates from the group.
February 2023 - Group training day and dinner
December 2023 - MBG Group Christmas Dinner
February 2023 - Well done Greta & Nacho for passing their PhDs! They’re the 1st PhD graduates from the group.
March 2023 - Yuval was awarded the Nicklin Medal from the Institution of Chemical Engineers
March 2023 - We welcome new group members. PDRA: Andrew Stannard. MSc students: Febin, Sunita, Wanrong Li and Yuanyuan.
March 2023 - Carolina gave a presentation on her research at the Synthetic Biology for Future Health 2023 Conference
February 2023 - Yuval was awarded the Judith Howard Prize Lecture at the Biophysical Science Institute, to be given later in the year
January 2023 - PhD students from the group including Carolina and Juan founded the Imperial Graduate Biotech Network to grow a community of life sciences researchers across the university and beyond, connecting graduates with professionals in the biotech sector. The society will be running a series of networking, careers and social events throughout the year.
December 2022 - Nacho gave an invited talk at the 2022 International Symposium on Precision Public Health at Korea University on his work on bio-inspired synthetic cells as artificial organelles
November 2022 - We hosted a conference on Biomimicry and Synthetic Cells at the Royal Society in London. Many group members presented posters on their fantastic work.
October 2022 - Group dinner!
October 2022 - Nacho’s paper on engineering stimuli-responsive vesicles as distributed artificial organelles for bacterial activation is out in PNAS. It was covered in a recent press release.
September 2022 - Yuval gave an invited talk on the group’s work on optical trapping as a tool in Synthetic Biology at PHOTON 22 in Nottingham, UK.
July 2022 - Matt’s paper on hydrogels as functional units in Synthetic Cells has been published in Nature Reviews Chemistry
October 2022 - Yuval gave a talk at MiBio, Cambridge, where he was also presented the Royal Society of Chemistry Felix Franks Medal for Biotechnology.
June 2022 - Group members participate in the 2022 Great Exhibition Road Festival with outreach stands on Microfluidics and DNA, together with other scientists from the Institute of Chemical Biology
June 2022 - Elani Group Pizza in the Park, Japanese Gardens, White City
June 2022 -Elani Group, together with Drs Kamaly and Ivanov hosted a seminar at Imperial College on Biomimetics.
April 2022 - Group member Claudia Contini has secured a prestigious BBSRC Discovery Fellowship, which she will start later this year.
April 2022 - Congratulations to PhD student Matt Allen and former MSci student James Albon for having their paper published in ChemComm. This is featured as part of the journals ‘Emerging Investigators' collection
April 2022 - Yuval contributed to The Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator (GESDA) for a horizon scanning exercise on artificial cell technologies
April 2022 - Yuval was awarded the Imperial College President’s Medal for Outstanding Early Career Researcher
March 2022 - Colin gave a talk at the Centre for Advanced Therapeutics on his work on microfluidic generation of higher order lipid particles
March 2022 - Congrats to PDRA Claudia Contini and former MRes student Wenyi Hu on having their paper published in ChemComm and to PhD student Carolina Monck on her paper in Chemical Engineering Research and Design.
March 2022 - Yuval gave an invited talk at The Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)
March 2022 - Membrane Biophysics Group Christmas Dinner, held at a brick lane curry house.
October 2021 - We welcome several new starters to the group. PhD students: Sham, Juan, Oliver and Yu. MRes students: Nina and Elina. MEng students: Yue and Zichen.
October 2021 - Yuval gave an invited talk at the 122nd International Titisee Conferences at the black forest in Germany - Life 2.0
October 2021 - PhD student Hannah Cooke was awarded the Sir Alan Fersht Prize for her MRes work in the group
October 2021 - First official group outing since covid! Dinner and drinks at white city.
September 2021 - The group’s own Dr Claudia Contini secured a L'Oréal-UNESCO UK and Ireland For Women in Science 2021 Rising Talent Fellowship in recognition of her research. Well done Claudia - onwards and upwards!
August 2021 - We were awarded a BBSRC/NSF lead agency grant to build a synthetic nucleus in order to understand the rules governing cellular architecture. This will be a collaboration between our group, Tom Ellis in Bioengineering, and Richard Murray in Caltech, USA.
August 2021 - Yuval was awarded the Royal Society of Chemistry Felix Franks Medal for Biotechnology
Summer 2021 - Yuval gave several invited talks on the group’s lastest research at various conferences and symposia, including at the SoftComp annual meeting, emerging investigators in microfluidics conference, and in the department of biomedical engineering at Zhejiang University (ZJU) in China.
May 2021 - Yuval joins the Imperial College Centre for Synthetic Biology (IC-CSynB) management board
April 2021 - Our paper on swimming liposome stabilised droplets is out in Nature Communications. Great collaboration with Shaobin, Guido, others from the Ces group, and our very own fantastic PDRA Claudia Contini. Nice to see it featured on the Imperial site.
April 2021 - Our paper on droplet technologies for manufacturing multi-layered cell membrane is published in ChemBioChem. Well done to former group members Joyce and Qien for leading this work during the final year undergrad projects.
April 2021 - Yuval presents the group research at University Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona, Catalonia, Spain.
March 2021 - fabriCELL is officially recognised as an Imperial College Network of Excellence
February 2021 - PhD students Greta and Nacho present at the Francis Crick Symposium
January 2021 - Our paper on microfluidic technologies for the manufacture of membranous nanoassemblies has been published in PCCP. This was an invited contribution as part of the PCCP Emerging Investigator Series. The paper was also selected by the editors as a 2021 HOT article. Well done to lead author Colin Pilkington!
December 2020 - We welcome five MSc Chemical Engineering / Chemical Biology MRes students to the group: Simba, Sai, Abdul, Tanmay, and Anshuman. Welcome on board!
October 2020 - Pleased to announce the award of an EPSRC New Horizons Grant. Dial-a-membrane: precision engineering of sub-micron self-assembled materials
October 2020 - We welcome six new talented PhD students to the group: Aileen, Fede, Hannah, Tom, Karen, and Carolina. Welcome to the team!!
September 2020 - Our paper on Cellular Bionics is published in Angewandte Chemie
June 2020 - Congrats to MSci Carol Tock, BSc Rino Iida, and MRes Wenyi Hu, who finished excellent projects with us in the group
May 2020: Our labs are (partially) back up and running after lockdown! We are at 50% capacity, but its good to be back!
May 2020 - We welcome two new PDRAs to the group: Divesh Baxani and Claudia Contini. Watch this space for some exciting outputs from the both of them!
April 2020 - New paper in Micromachines on using optical traps to fuse membrane domains and modulate membrane phase behavior. Well done first author Adi Vivek, who is now doing a PhD at Cambridge Engineering.
January 2020 - Yuval officially joins the Department of Chemical Engineering at Imperial as a Lecturer (US equivalent: Assistant Professor)
January 2020 - Yuval gives a talk in the Living Innovation symposium in Durham, UK. This was part of a really cool initiative at the science/art/philosophy/ethics interface in the context on living materials. Material Innovation - check it out!
November 2019 - Yuval gave a talk in Tokyo as part of the Royal Society / Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Frontiers of Science Symposium
October 2019 - Yuval represents fabriCELL in the European Artificial Cell PIs meeting in Madrid.
September 2019 - Big funding news announced: Yuval secured a ca. £2.5M UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship which will fund the group’s activities in protocell research for the next 7 years.
September 2019 - MRes student Adi Vivek won the best talk prize at the MRes symposium. Well done Adi!
August 2019 - Our paper on building synthetic mechanosensitive signaling pathways artificial cells is out now in PNAS.
July 2019 - Yuval gives a talk at the London Synthetic Biology Showcase at UCL
July 2019 - MSci student James Albon spoke at the Imperial Chemistry symposium
July 2019 - We welcome a new UROP student from life sciences, Ieva Salkauskaite to the group!
May 2019 - Our paper on New Directions for Artificial Cells Using Prototyped Biosystems is not out in Analytical Chemistry
April 2019 - Yuval spoke at the launch of the Molecular Science Research Hub, opened by London Mayor Sadiq Khan.
January 2019 - Pleased to announced the award of an Imperial College seed fund grant with Rodrigo Ledesma-Amaro from Imperial Bioengineering on long-term storage of synthetic cells for endpoint delivery. Exciting times ahead!
January 2019 - Our paper on using optical tweezers to manipulate lipid membranes is out now in Nature Communications Chemistry
For press article click here.
December 2019 - Imperial College Centre for Synthetic Biology Launch Event. Yuval spoke at this event together with colleagues from Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering, and Life Sciences. An exciting time to be a Synthetic Biologist at Imperial!
November 2019 - Welcome Frank! Zehua Hu (aka Frank) joins the group as an MRes in Chemical Biology working on artificial cells multi-stage content release
October 2018 - The group is expanding! We welcome new PhD students : Nacho Gispert, Greta Zubaite, Qien Li. New MRes: Adi Vivek. New MSci: James Albon. Visiting Student: Ru Hui Tay. Group picture coming soon.
September 2018- MRes student Nacho Gispert presented a poster on engineered communication between cells and synthetic cells, and Yuval gave a talk on the group’s latest research at BioMedEng18.
August 2018 - Our paper on using engineered bacteria as organelle-like biosensing modules in artificial cells has been published in Royal Society Interface Focus.
August 2018 - Our new review paper on droplet microfluidics for the construction of compartmentalised model membranes out in Lab on a Chip!
August 2018 - The group is getting ready to move to the brand new Molecular Science Research Hub in White City. Goodbye South Ken!
July 2018 - Goodbye to Qien and Joyce, two fantastic students who finished their time in the group as undergraduate project students. Qien will be staying on to do a PhD.
June 2018 - Yuval was appointed to the EPSRC Early Career Forum for Engineering
June 2018 - Yuval gave an invited talk at the Synthetic Biology Section of Experimental Biology conference in San Diego. Cheeky midday Tequila with the host.
May 2018 - New paper published in Chemical Science. on membrane domains and content release. Well done to Kez, James et al.
May 2018 - New paper published in Nature Communications on using Optical Tweezers to sculpt tissue-like sysnthetic cell networks. Nice write up can be found here.
March 2018- New paper published in Scientific Reports on forming living/synthetic hybrid cells. Nice write-up on IFL science!
March 2018- New paper published in Nature Communications. on making light-responsive nested vesicles for catalysis. See press release and accompanying behind the paper blog. Mega Well done to first author James Hindley
February 2018- Yuval gave the RSC Rita and John Cornforth Award Lecture at Lincoln University
October 2017 - New paper in Chemical Communications on a synthetic biology approach for controlled liposome release kinetics. Huge congrats to MSci project student Julia Thomas for this achievement
September 2017-The group co-organised the fabriCELL launch event, featuring Jack Szostak (Nobel Prize 2009), Lee Cronin, and Patricia Bassereau
August 2017 - Yuval is appointed Associate Editor for the Synthetic Biology Section of Experimental Biology and Medicine
August 2017 - Yuval went to the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting of New Champions in Dalian, China. He led two sessions on Synthetic Biology and Bioethics.
June 2017- New paper published in ACS nano.
June 2017 - Yuval gave a Seminar at the Crick Institute
June 2017 - New paper in Experimental Biology and Medicine on artificial cells used as models to probe fundumental biology.
May 2017 - Yuval won the Royal Society of Chemistry Rita and John Cornforth Medal together with other PIs in the Membrane Biophysics Platform. The award recognizes scientists working in collaborative research teams in both Chemistry and Life Science disciplines. June 2017
April 2017 - New paper in Microsystems and Nanoengineering on hydrophilic PDMS production methods
January 2017 - Yuval was selected to be part of the World Economic Forum's Young Scientist Community