Pierangelo Gobbo
University of Trieste, Italy
Prof. Pierangelo Gobbo is an Associate Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Trieste. He pioneers strategies to organise protocells into free-standing prototissues. These are tissue-like materials with complex 3D architectures chemically programmed to mimic basic aspects of living tissues (e.g., contractility, phototropism, chemical communication). Pierangelo has received numerous research awards, including Italy’s Giacomo Ciamician Medal (2021), the UK’s EPSRC New Investigator Award (2020), and Canada’s Governor General’s Gold Medal (2017). He is Principal Investigator of an ERC Starting Grant (2021), co-coordinator of an EIC Pathfinder Open (2022), and has supervised two MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships and several national research projects.
Research in the Gobbo Group focuses on organizing protocells into prototissues, tissue-like materials in which interlinked protocells form complex catalytic networks and communicate through synthetic signaling, giving rise to minimal multicellular systems with emergent behaviors such as collective motion (10.1038/s41563-018-0183-5), out-of-equilibrium sensing (10.1002/adma.202100340, 10.1002/advs.202409066, 10.1039/D1LC00602A), and phototropism (10.1002/adma.202502830). Within the ERC StG PROTOMAT (https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101039578), the group also interfaces prototissues with living cells. Guided by the philosophy of using functional molecules and (nano)materials to build fully synthetic protocells (10.1002/ejoc.202300529), they also engineer polymer-based coacervate condensates exhibiting evolution and non-equilibrium self-assembly (10.1021/jacs.5c14198), alongside artificial light-harvesting organelles powering autonomous photocatalytic networks (10.1002/chem.202501322).
For more information, visit the Gobbo Group website
| Main area(s) | Sub-area(s) |
|---|---|
| Metabolism and energy for synthetic cells | Artificial light harvesting systems Complex interlinked catalytic networks Autonomous carbon converting networks Artificial organelles (mitochondria/chloroplasts) Chemical communication between protocells |
| Synthetic cell division and replication | Coacervate-based protocells |
| Information processing and evolution of synthetic cells | Synthetic signaling Design of minimal multicellular systems Interfacing synthetic and natural cells Protocell evolution experiments Non-equilibrium self-assembly |
| Enabling technologies for synthetic cells | Condensate-based Synthetic Cells Polymer-based Synthetic Cells |