News

First Dissertation Award for Synthetic Biology

Dr. Christoph Diehl from the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology in Marburg is the first winner of the Dissertation Award for Synthetic Biology. The award was presented during the International Synthetic Biology Workshop on 20 – 22 March 2023 at the Centre for Synthetic Biology in Darmstadt.

The Sense-Compute-Response Paradigm

The Centre for Synthetic Biology is hosting a workshop entitled “The Sense-Compute-Response Paradigm” in Darmstadt, Germany, March 20-22, 2023. We have assembled an excellent list of speakers who will present groundbreaking developments in synthetic biology.

On August 30, 2022, the Thesis Awards of the Centre for Synthetic Biology were presented for the first time in person. The botanical garden of the TU Darmstadt offered the ideal venue for this event in best weather. Professor Heinz Koeppl presented the thesis award endowed with 1500 € to Dr. Jan Bogen.

EU Research Council funds project by TU Professor Heinz Koeppl with 150,000 euros

TU Professor Heinz Koeppl (Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology) receives a “Proof of Concept” grant of 150,000 euros from the European Research Council (ERC) for the second time. The new grant will fund his project “PLATE – Biophysical Genetic Design Automation Technology”, which deals with algorithms for the computer-aided design of genetic circuits in synthetic biology.

FLOW FOR LIFE organizes the first public Minisymposium (Hybrid event) on June 15, 2022 from18:00-20:00 pm. Invited Speakers are Catherine Picart, CEA Grenoble „Bioactive Medical Devices for Bone Regeneration“ and Cláudio Franco, Universidade de Lisboa „How to build an efficient network of vessels“.

The “CompuGene Student Lab” is a new student project that is part of the Centre for Synthetic Biology at TU Darmstadt. The students independently set up a research project related to synthetic biology. This includes the development of their own research idea, independent laboratory work and the acquisition of research funds. In the process, the students work together on the path from the initial idea to a publication. Results could be published or patented and presented in competitions or symposia.

Activating X-rays – Signalling Cascade in T-cells

Radiation therapy is a proven approach to destroying tumours. However, it is possible that it might be able to do even more in the future – namely stimulate the immune system at the same time and so fight cancer even more intensively. The foundations for this have been laid by researchers led by TU Darmstadt. They have found that x-rays trigger a calcium signalling cascade in cells of the immune system. The results have now been published in the “Journal of General Physiology”.

Programmable biosensors using synthetic biology: Funding as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action

The international “SYNSENSO” Doctoral Network that is coordinated by TU Darmstadt is developing a new generation of modular biosensors. The European Commission has now awarded the network a total of 2.7 million euros of funding as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action.

Update meeting no.1 a success

On 17 March, the first update meeting of the TUcanSense team took place to inform about the current status of the SensUs project. Besides the team and some interested lecturers, representatives of the sponsors were also present.

Synthetic Biology – New Life Forms from the Lab?

What is synthetic biology and what can it already achieve today? This discipline has only been around for about 20 years, and yet it is impossible to imagine medicine, cosmetics or industry without its products. And can it ultimately deliver new life forms from the laboratory? The programme “IQ – Wissenschaft und Forschung” (IQ – Science and Research) of the Bavarian Broadcasting Corporation presents this still young science in a report and was also a guest at the TU Darmstadt in the Centre for Synthetic Biology.

The Graduate School Life Science Engineering is holding its first retreat at Darmstädter Haus in Kleinwalsertal in March 2022. It's great to see the interdisciplinary team growing together, including PhD students, supervisors and guest speakers.

In the spring issue of ProLOEWE-NEWS, the LOEWE Research Centre FLOW FOR LIFE, newly funded since January 2022, is presented in detail.

The TU Darmstadt team starts the competition year 2022

Joint kickoff with our colleagues from biology, chemistry and electrical engineering and the TU Darmstadt TUcanSense team.

Prof. Dominik Niopek receives ERC Starting Grant

Professor Dominik Niopek, Centre for Synthetic Biology at the TU, has been awarded an ERC Starting Grant by the European Research Council. The project is being funded with around 1.6 million euros.

The virtual conference takes place from December 6st – 17th and features a selection of world specialists working in the field of Biosystems Design and Synthetic Biology. The conference is organized BioDesign Research (BDR).

You can vote now for APTASENSE in the Hessian Ideas Competition until 23 October.

Several PhD and Postdoc positions (f/m/d) are available at the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany, within the framework of the research cluster FLOW FOR LIFE. The employment is initially limited to a period of three years with the possibility of a one-year extension.

For children and young people aged 10 and over, the ProLOEWE science rallye is taking place during the summer holidays. Starting on 2 August, 21 riddle videos have to be solved. There will be experiments, painting, handicrafts and discovering nature. And best of all: there is a whole range of prizes to be won. The Centre for Synthetic Biology emerged from the two LOEWE research clusters iNAPO & CompuGene will of course also be participating.

The current corona pandemic shows the importance of antiviral drugs. A project funded by the LOEWE Exploration now explores a concept to develop antiviral agents with lower side effects. ‘A critical aspect in drug discovery is the relationship between the desired effect and possible side effects, explains Professor Felix Hausch from the TU Darmstadt. Together with his colleague professor Eberhard Hildt from the Paul Ehrlich Institute, he explores, whether the combination of two prominent types of antiviral drugs can be used to derive so-called prodrugs that preferentially act in virally infected cells. This could reduce undesirable effects in unaffected cells of patients. This concept of so-called protease-activatable antiviral prodrugs will be demonstrated using hepatitis C viruses (HCV) and corona viruses (SARS-CoV2) as well-understood model systems.

State of Hesse funds new LOEWE research cluster at TU Darmstadt

Success for TU Darmstadt in the 14th funding round of the State Offensive for the Development of Scientific and Economic Excellence (LOEWE): From January 2022, the new LOEWE research cluster “FLOW FOR LIFE” will be funded for four years with a total of around 4.7 million euros.

A growing number of applications in biotechnology and synthetic biology rely on artificially engineered protein switches and sensors. Here, peptide linkers constitute critical elements that mediate conformational transitions and switching. In a recent review featured as a cover story in Trends in Biotechnology, Alexander Gräwe and Viktor Stein, head of the Protein Engineering group at the Centre for Synthetic Biology at the TU Darmstadt, survey the state-of-the-art in linker engineering and perform an in-depth analysis of the toolboxes, molecular model and screening strategies that are available for linker engineering. The review is anticipated to provide a powerful resource for the development of novel protein switches and complex fusion proteins.

How to shape education for a sustainable bioeconomy?

Interdisciplinary & game changing: The future of education for a sustainable circular bioeconomy!

Together with Nicola Patron, Johannes Kabisch organizes webinars in which the European working groups of the Global Biofoundries Alliance present themselves. The Centre is part of the GBA with the centrally accessible CompuGene Robotics Platform. The next seminar will take place on 20/04/2021 from 13-14:00 CET via Zoom. Please register in advance for this webinar https://lbnl.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_x6S_QgwHTFeSnBCSmsfxMg Presenters will be: Rosalind Le Feuvre from Manchester Mark Dörr from Greifswald

The “Pioneer Fund” programme funds projects that transfer research into commercial application

A test to detect antibiotics in food with the aid of a smartphone – this is the subjects of the project APTASENSE being funded in the sixth round of the Pioneer Fund. This joint programme for the funding of innovations from TU Darmstadt and the ENTEGA NATURpur Institute has been supporting the transfer of research into commercial application since 2017 with total funding of 600,000 Euro per year.

The junior research group of Prof. Dr. Viktor Stein recently published a study in the prestigious journal of Nucleic Acids Research. The paper describes a general method for the combinatorial assembly of complex fusion proteins by means of an iterative DNA assembly process.