Two NWO Rubicon grants for AMOLF researchers

Former PhD students Anne Meeussen (Mechanical Metamaterials group) and Mario Avellaneda Sarrio (Biophysics group) are amongst the 31 researchers who have recently received a Rubicon grant from NWO. The Rubicon program gives young, highly promising researchers the opportunity to gain international research experience. With a Rubicon grant they can spend up to 24 months doing research at a foreign institution.

Mario Avellaneda Sarrio will use the grant to investigate bioelectric patrolling against pathogens at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria in Vienna. Immune cells need to navigate through the human body in search of pathogens, yet how they can migrate so efficiently remains unclear. The researcher will elucidate how local electric potential changes in cell membrane assist steering of immune cells during migration

Anne Meeussen will work on targeted design of shape-morphing materials at Harvard University in Boston. Shape-changing materials—from tents to solar sails—are useful, but hard to design. Based on experiments, the researcher models such shape-morphing materials. The researcher uses this model to map out design rules, which help scientists create new shape-morphing structures.

Read the NWO press release

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Collaboration

Successful outcomes of international EBEAM program led by AMOLF

The EU Pathfinder project Electron Beams Enhancing Analytical Microscopy (EBEAM) that was recently completed has received a highly positive review of the European Innovation Council (EIC). EBEAM brought together eight European research institutions and companies, including AMOLF, that develop new concepts and instruments combining spectroscopic analysis with electron microscopy.

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Research highlights

Everything you need to know about organoids

Organoids are instrumental in improving our understanding of processes that are otherwise hidden inside the body. For instance, these small 3D organs can be used to test medicines on tissue grown from a patient’s own cells. AMOLF researchers carry out unique and complex experiments to follow organoids in time. In order to enable other researchers to benefit from their experiences, they now publish their methods in the prestigious journal Nature Protocols.

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Events and outreach

Minister Rianne Letschert wears hat and shoulder ornament inspired by Wim Noorduin’s research

This year at the opening of the parliamentary year (Prinsjesdag) Minister of Education, Culture and Science Rianne Letschert wears a spectacular hat and shoulder ornament. Both of them are inspired by the microscopic structures studied by group leader Wim Noorduin (AMOLF/UvA), which look remarkably like tiny flowers under a microscope. Artist and designer Malou Beemer translated these shapes, normally invisible to the naked eye, into wearable art.

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Nachi Stern, Group Leader Learning Machines at AMOLF

People and recognition

Nachi Stern awarded ERC Starting Grant to explore how matter learns

Why do brains learn, but rocks do not? Could a material one day adapt to its environment the way a living organism does? AMOLF group leader Dr. Nachi Stern has been awarded an ERC Starting Grant to investigate the physical laws of learning, in a project called, “Physical Learning in Dynamical Systems.”

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