The European Commission Visits SynCellEU and SynCell Researchers in Delft
On 20 April, the European Synthetic Cell Initiative (SynCellEU) welcomed Joanna Drake, Deputy Director-General for Research and Innovation at the European Commission. The Initiative showed its efforts to accelerate research and technological development in the field of synthetic cell research. During her visit, Joanna also met with young researchers from the EVOLF and BaSyC research consortia. They gave her a snapshot of the various projects underway to build synthetic cells and the challenges they face in achieving this.
Monday, 18:00 at the Bionanoscience Department at Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) in the Netherlands. The sun is still shining outside, but in the optical tweezers room, the only light comes from the laser beam. A PhD student explains to Joanna how he works with the laser to manipulate components 10,000 times thinner than a strand of hair.
Liposome growth, division, adhesion… During the tour of the laboratories, Joanna meets with PhD students and postdoctoral researchers from the Dutch consortia BaSyC and EVOLF. They talk to her enthusiastically about their research project and give her a brief glimpse of the challenges facing the scientific community in the building of synthetic cells.
Earlier, Joanna was welcomed by Paulien Herder, Dean of the Faculty of Applied Sciences, Martin Depken, Chair of the Bionanoscience Department, and Marileen Dogterom, Chair of the European Synthetic Cell Initiative (SynCellEU) and the BaSyC programme.
Marileen Dogterom introduced the field of synthetic cell research (SynCell) – “one of the faculty’s key areas”, as Paulien emphasised – and stressed the need for the scientific community to collaborate at European level and with industry.
“SynCell research helps us to understand how life works and to make things like nature does. There is a wide range of technologies that could emerge and impact many different areas. We could imagine technologies based on synthetic cells to produce medicines, or to encapsulate a drug intended for direct administration into the body, or even synthetic cells capable of eating plastics. But all this is still some way off,” said Marileen Dogterom during the presentation.
She highlighted the excellent funding programmes available at national level and those introduced by the European Commission, which help EU researchers stay one step ahead of the competition. But such a technical challenge requires a wide range of skills. “We need a suitable framework to enable scientists to collaborate at European level and to take this research from a low TRL [technological readiness level] to a higher one.”
The professor spoke about SynCellEU’s efforts to accelerate SynCell research and keep Europe at the forefront of scientific discovery and technological development. She also presented the work carried out under the Dutch research programmes BaSyC and EVOLF, particularly on the topic of cell division, which was then explored in more depth during the laboratory visit.
“We are currently at the forefront in Europe. It would be a shame if our industries were not the ones to benefit from this,” Marileen added.
After her visit, Joanna joined Ingrid Thijssen, President of the Executive Board of TU Delft, at the SynCell Global Summit. During the dinner held as part of the summit, Joanna gave a speech and had the opportunity to connect with experts in the field from around the world.
photos from the tour of the laboratories:
