News & updates
Latest developments from our institute
Stay informed about new research results, awards, events, and collaborations across our scientific community.
Two Veni grants awarded for projects on immune system activation and twisted perovskites
Two researchers have been awarded Veni grants from the Dutch Research Council (NWO) for three-year postdoctoral research projects at AMOLF. Dr. Megan Farrell will conduct her project on how immune cells respond to signals from the tissue around them. Dr. Kunal Datta will investigate how new optical and electronic properties emerge when semiconductor crystals twist against each other.
AMOLF researchers with granted NWO XS projects
Last week, three AMOLF researchers learned that their research projects had been awarded funding through the Open Competition Domain Science-XS call. They are Dr. Susanna Eli (Biophysics, Quant. Dev. Biology & Physics of Cellular Interactions), Dr. Sarah Gillespie (Nanoscale Solar Cells), and Dr. Sergio Rey Puentes (Hybrid Nanosystems).
‘Autonomy’ takes center stage at symposium
On June 11, researchers gathered at the Autonomous Matter Symposium to discuss the concept of autonomy from different perspectives. Professor Jay Groves (UC Berkeley) argued that autonomy may not begin with decision-making, but with amplification. Professor Elisabetta Chicca (University of Groningen) offered a complementary perspective from the field of neuromorphic engineering.
Three grants, three paths toward impact
Wiebke Albrecht AMOLF group leader Wiebke Albrecht has been awarded an NWO XS grant for the project ‘Mapping nanoscale heat generation and dissipation around plasmonic nanoparticles.’ …
ZonMW grant for immune system research
Together with fellow researcher Ramon Arens (LUMC), Kristina Ganzinger (AMOLF/Oncode Institute) has received a ZonMw Open Competition grant amounting 800 k€ for research on the immune system. Kristina explains: “By linking fundamental discoveries to practical applications, we hope that this research can contribute to more effective immunotherapies and improved survival outcomes for a larger number of patients.”
Immune cells regulate themselves through a newly discovered molecular interaction
Immune cells can regulate their own activity through a previously unknown molecular interaction on their surface, according to new research published in Science Signaling on December 9, 2025. Researchers from the Physics of Cellular Interactions group at AMOLF, together with collaborators, discovered that two proteins, MARCO and LAIR-1, can interact on the same immune cell to control inhibitory signaling. This main finding reveals a new way in which immune cells fine tune their behavior and helps explain how immune responses can be either restrained or released when needed.
Off Road grant awarded to study how immune cells know when to stop
We’re excited to announce that Megan Farrell has been awarded the Off Road grant by ZonMW to carry out innovative immunology research in the lab of Kristina Ganzinger.
AMOLF PhD student Tom Aarts: Faces of Science representative
Today, the KNAW presented the new Faces of Science, and AMOLF researcher Tom Aarts (Physics of Cellular Interactions) is one of them.