Andreas Walther

Join us as a #PhD #Researcher or #Postdoc to answer bold questions on our new #ERC Advanced Grant: Protoecologies between Artificial Cells and Mammalian Cells. #ArtificialCells #SyntheticCells #SyntheticBiology #Biomaterials #DNANanotechnology #biomaterials #cellbiology #SystemsChemistry

Your background in #Chemistry #Biology #Biomaterials #SyntheticBiology can be a fit for our interdisciplinary team! Full project and advert: www.walther-group.com/erc Lab homepage: www.walther-group.com

Please share this opportunity with researchers who may be a strong fit. #PhDPositions #PostdocJobs #ArtificialCells #SyntheticCells #SyntheticBiology #Biomaterials #DNANanotechnology #biomaterials #cellbiology #SystemsChemistry #ERC

youtube.comBuild-a-Cell seminar Cees Dekker: EVOLF bottom up approach to building synthetic cell & our researchBuild-a-Cell seminar presented by Cees Dekker from Delft University of Technology EVOLF: a bottom up approach to building a synthetic cell, and our recent research therein This is recording of live…

We want to answer one main question: Can synthetic cells live, communicate, and cooperate with mammalian cells? Can we build ecologies? What emergent properties would they have? What new therapeutic concepts could this enable in the biomaterials world?

Andreas Walther reposted

Cees Dekker

@ceesdekker.bsky.social

21 July

Here's recording of a zoom talk on synthetic cells and our research towards that, that I gave yesterday in the 'Build-a-Cell' online seminars: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPOC...

SFB 1551 - Collaborative Research Centre 1551

11 July

Weekend with the old DWI friends in Potsdam. Fantastic break.

Andreas Walther reposted

@sfb1551.bsky.social

25 June

👏👏👏Congratulations to SFB 1551 group leaders Edward Lemke @lemkelab.bsky.social and Andreas Walther @waltherlab.bsky.social at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) @unimainz.bsky.social @imbmainz.bsky.social on being awarded prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grants.

Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz@unimainz.bsky.social

#ERCAdG für zwei Forschende der #UniMainz: Biophysiker Edward Lemke und Chemiker Andreas Walther erhalten Förderung in Millionenhöhe von der EU 👉 presse.uni-mainz.de/erc-advanced-… #ERCAdvancedGrant #Biophysik #Biomaterialien @imbmainz.bsky.social #ERC @erc.europa.eu @waltherlab.bsky.social

advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.comSoft Hardware, Flowing Software: Reconfigurable Microfluidics for Adaptable Chemical ComputationReader environment loaded

11 June

New in Advanced Materials: Our “soft hardware, flowing software” platform uses rewritable hydrogel microfluidics to reshape chemical computation—and implements a reservoir computer from flowing reaction dynamics. advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

11 June

Chemistry + flow + structure = adaptive chemical computing. Big congrats to the master - first author Piet!!

11 June

#AdvancedMaterials #ReservoirComputing #ChemicalComputing #Microfluidics #DNAComputing #SoftMatter #Hydrogels #AdaptiveMaterials #SystemsChemistry

🚀 We are recruiting 2 PhD researchers to join the Walther Lab @ JGU Mainz! Help us build intelligent matter: synthetic cells and hydrogel materials that compute, adapt, move, learn, or make simple decisions. #PhDPosition #SyntheticCells #Hydrogels

You will join an international, interdisciplinary team working at the interface of systems chemistry, DNA nanoscience, polymer materials, synthetic cells, soft matter, and life-like materials. Possible association with the Max Planck Graduate Center.

📍 Mainz, Germany 📅 Start: from July 2026 ⏳ Rolling evaluation; deadline end of May 2026 🔗 More info: www.walther-group.com Please share with excellent Master’s students who want to build adaptive, life-like, intelligent molecular systems.

🧬 PhD 1: DNA-based Synthetic Cells We aim to engineer enzymatically active synthetic cells with reaction modules, emergent behaviours such as flow/propulsion, and adaptive features such as habituation and sensitisation. #DNANanoscience #ActiveMatter

🧪 PhD 2: Chemo-mechano Materials We will combine hydrogels, mechanical metamaterials, and chemical reaction networks to create materials where geometry, mechanics, and chemistry feed back on each other. #SystemsChemistry #Mechanochemistry

26 Apr

Heading out to San Sebastian for the ChemBio 2026.. lnkd.in/dKpHVREp. Looking forward to meeting the Spanish Community and beyond. My keynote is on Tuesday - happy to discuss, just approach me.

23 Apr

It has been great catching up with @pappasgroup.bsky.social in @uni-freiburg.de. King of phosphates in #systemschemistry

nature.comSynthetic aptamer mechanoreceptors enable cell-specific force sensing and temporal control via DNA circuits - Nature CommunicationsEngineering synthetic mechanosensing systems with both cell-specificity and programmability remains challenging, especially for classical mechanoreceptors. Here, the authors develop an all-DNA mechano...

Excited to share “Synthetic Aptamer Mechanoreceptors Enable Cell-Specific Force Sensing and Temporal Control via DNA Circuits.” in NatComm. This is our most significant excursion into mechanobiology #mechanobiology #DNAnanoscience #aptamers www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Because the whole system is built from nucleic acids, it is naturally compatible with DNA strand displacement and reaction networks. That allowed us to go beyond static sensing and introduce reversible switching and temporal programming of mechanosensitivity.

We think this could open exciting future opportunities in tissue engineering, morphogenesis, dynamic cell programming, and multi-layered mechanical-biochemical control. Very happy that this work was supported by our ERC funding. #ERCfunded @erc.europa.eu

Tao Xu developed an all-DNA mechanosensing platform in which aptamers act as synthetic receptor ligands embedded into force-responsive DNA mechanoprobes. This enables cell-type-selective force sensing rather than relying only on broadly expressed classical receptors such as integrins.

A key idea is that aptamers let us access noncanonical surface receptors for mechanotransduction. Using this, we could probe distinct mechanical inputs, including actomyosin-driven contractility and membrane ruffling during macropinocytosis

🧪🧠 New preprint out! Soft Hardware, Flowing Software We introduce reconfigurable microfluidics as an active control layer for chemical computation. Geometry, and flow, and not molecular redesign, programs function. Great work by Piet! chemrxiv.org/doi/full/10....

🧱 Key message: We add a new computational dimension - hardware-level programmability - to chemical computing. Function is reassigned by physical reconfiguration, not molecular redesign.

🔮 Why this matters: Reconfigurable soft microfluidics point toward adaptive chemical matter, embodied computation, and future closed-loop chemical learning systems. #physicalintelligence #softmatter #adaptivematerials

🌊 Then things get fun: With a pH oscillator, reconfigurable geometry gives rise to standing chemical waves. Emergent spatiotemporal patterns from the interplay of reaction dynamics × flow × structure. #complexity #oscillator #noneqsys

🧠 These patterns become computation: The material system itself acts as a physical reservoir, enabling analogue & reservoir computing. Nonlinear functions are recovered with a simple linear readout: The complexity lives in the material. #reservoircomputing

🔁 This enables something powerful: The same molecular system can perform different computations simply by changing physical structure. No new DNA strands. No new chemistry. Just new geometry. #chemicalcomputation #systemschemistry

🧬 We show this first with switchable DNA logic: AND ↔ OR gates realized using the same DNA network — logic reassigned purely by reconfiguring microfluidic flow paths. #DNAnanoscience

💡 The core idea: Instead of encoding computation only in chemistry, we make the reaction vessel itself programmable. Soft hydrogel structures can be written & erased in situ, reshaping flow, mixing, and reaction environments on demand. #3Dprinting #microfluidics

14 Jan

I will soon be in Singapore (22-31.Jan) for the Dean's Distinguished Speaker Series #NTU #Singapore hosted by Ali Miserez. Very excited to go and thank you to Ali! @Singaporean researchers, if you want to meet me, I am happy to do so. PLease send me a direct message.

14 Jan

Schrödinger was in our canteen and the decision is yet to be made. 🤯😳at least 50 % chance to get it right.

18 Dec 2025

Fun Xmas day with a team of amazing people. Life is good 😊

14 Dec 2025

Taking my @sfb1551.bsky.social socks for another spin to visit Silvia Vignolini at the MPI in golm. A long trip…

14 Dec 2025

@mpici.bsky.social

7 Dec 2025

Let’s get the show on the road. Best way to start the day. #roma

10 Nov 2025

I made it to Cambridge 😀. Looking forward to meeting some ECRs and speaking later today at the Engineering Biology Forum.

2 Nov 2025

Duck 🦆 - chestnuts 🌰 - carrot 🥕- blueberrry 🫐 #chemistswhocook

25 Oct 2025

Saturday 🧑‍🍳. Cod loin, cauliflower coconut purée, cilantro/lime oil and some barberries.. #chemistswhocook #silkysmoothpuree

23 Oct 2025

Looking very much forward to speaking at the Institute for Molecules and Materials in Nijmegen tmrw. Deutsche Bahn is playing all tricks to prevent me from reaching it.

onlinelibrary.wiley.comATP‐Powered Signaling Between Artificial and Living CellsWe introduce an ATP-powered artificial cell platform capable of selectively and transiently releasing DNA signals to facilitate communication between artificial and living cells. By engineering these...

23 Oct 2025

Congratulations to Soumya and Charu for making the first ATP-fueled homeostatic cytokine delivery system for communication between artificial and living cells. Now in Angewandte Chemie @angewandtechemie.bsky.social #syntheticcell #noneqsys #DNAnanoscience onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

nature.comGrowing functional artificial cytoskeletons in the viscoelastic confinement of DNA synthetic cells - Nature Chemical EngineeringEngineering structurally and functionally complex synthetic cells remains a key challenge. Here DNA condensate synthetic cells combine phase separation and DNA nanostructures to reveal how switchable ...

23 Oct 2025

Fresh in @natchemeng.nature.com Growing artificial cytoskeleton in the viscoelastic confinement of DNA Artificial Cells. Brilliant work bey Weixiang! #Syntheticcell #systemschemistry www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Andreas Walther reposted

Engineering Biology Interdisciplinary Research Centre

@engbioirc.bsky.social

14 Oct 2025

Join us at our EngBio Forum on 10 Nov to hear from Andreas Walther @waltherlab.bsky.social on creating programmable materials and DNA-based synthetic cells that can process information, adapt,and communicate. Don't miss it! Sign up 🫱 buytickets.at/engineeringb... #SyntheticCells #LifeLikeSystems

Andreas Walther reposted

SFB 1551 - Collaborative Research Centre 1551

@sfb1551.bsky.social

8 Oct 2025

🖥️ New Publication Alert Congratulations to Eric Schumbera, @dormannlab.bsky.social, @waltherlab.bsky.social & @miguelandrade66.bsky.social on their recent publication in BMC Genomics #RGmotifs #IDRs #LLPS #HumanProteome #ComputationalMotifAnalysis bmcgenomics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....

bmcgenomics.biomedcentral.comComputational investigation of the sequence context of arginine/glycine-rich motifs in the human proteome - BMC GenomicsArginine-glycine (RG)-rich motifs are among the most prevalent RNA-binding elements within intrinsically disordered regions (IDRs) of proteins and play crucial roles in RNA metabolism, gene regulation, and the formation of membraneless organelles via liquid phase separation (LLPS). Despite their biological relevance and implication in neurological disorders and cancer, the sequence features and context dependencies that define functional RG motifs remain poorly characterized owing to their disordered nature and sequence variability. In this study, we present a computational framework to dissect the sequence and structural context of RG motifs across the human proteome. By contrasting a functionally defined positive dataset—enriched for RNA-binding and phase-separating proteins—with a negative dataset of RG motif proteins lacking these annotations, we identified distinct compositional and contextual signatures. RG motifs in the functionally defined positive dataset show increased enrichment of phenylalanine, tyrosine, aspartic acid, and asparagine, both within and around the motif, as well as nonrandom spatial relationships with structured RNA-binding domains. Notably, phenylalanine and tyrosine exhibit divergent positional and functional profiles, suggesting distinct mechanistic roles. Our analysis highlights the potential of sequence-based approaches to uncover functional determinants in disordered protein regions and further advances our understanding of the properties of RG motifs, offering a transferable framework for the study of other low-complexity motifs.

Andreas Walther reposted

Engineering Biology Interdisciplinary Research Centre

@engbioirc.bsky.social

6 Oct 2025

We're extremely excited to welcome Prof Andreas Walther @waltherlab.bsky.social and Dr Claudia Contini @continiclau.bsky.social for our next Forum We'll be exploring #SyntheticCells #LifeLikeSystems and #EngineeringBiology from the bottom-up Don't miss it, register now! 👉 bit.ly/engbio-forum-nov25

advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.comSoft Robotic Engines with Non‐Reciprocal Motion by Physical IntelligenceMovement is vital, and it requires breaking symmetry. This study introduces a hydrogel engine that achieves non-reciprocal motion through kinetic asymmetry in repeated actuation cycles. This approach....

11 Sept 2025

🚨Oli's soft robotic engines are now in #AdvancedMaterials. A new paradigm for hydrogel actuators - non-reciprocal motion. Kinetic asymmetry rocks advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.... #softrobotics #ercfunded @erc.europa.eu #hydrogel #actuator #noneqsys #lifelike #physicalintelligence