How do mechanics shape biological assembly and behaviour across scales? I combine bottom-up and top-down approaches to address this broad question and shed light on diverse biological phenomena ranging from cell division and phagocytosis to tissue integrity.

As an EMBO and Marie Skłodowska-Curie postdoctoral fellow in the Charras lab, I investigate the molecular mechanisms that govern the integrity of living tissues under mechanical stress. My work focuses on bridging the vastly different length- and force-scales involved in tissue integrity and failure, from molecules to tissues.

Previous research
Originally trained in Engineering Physics (BSc and MSc at TU Ilmenau, Germany), I am fascinated by soft and biological matter. During research stays at the University of Edinburgh (MacPhee lab) and University of Amsterdam (Schall lab) I studied multiscale self-assembly of proteins and colloids, showing how confinement and hierarchical assembly can be harnessed to produce novel materials.

In December 2022 I defended my PhD thesis entitled ‘Reconstituting cytokinesis one molecule at a time’ (Gijsje Koenderink lab, TU Delft and AMOLF) as part of the Dutch ‘Building A Synthetic Cell’ consortium. To ask how biological self-assembly might be harnessed to build and divide synthetic cells, I established an experimental model for biomimetic actin cortices in cell-sized lipid vesicles. I demonstrated that simple actin cortices can perform unexpectedly complex cellular functions such as driving cellular protrusions, sensing membrane curvature, and mechanically stiffening the cell surface. I further studied the role of self-assembly for the motility of molecular motors, charge-based assembly of miminal actin cortices, and growth of synthetic cell membranes via DNA-mediated vesicle fusion. As a guest researcher at UC Berkeley and MBL Woods Hole (Fletcher lab, 2022/2023) I used synthetic cells to investigate how target mechanics shape the behaviour of macrophages.