Physics of Cellular Interactions

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.

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).

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.

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.’ …

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 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.

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.

Today, the KNAW presented the new Faces of Science, and AMOLF researcher Tom Aarts (Physics of Cellular Interactions) is one of them. 

“What is life? How does a living cell emerge from lifeless molecules?” wondered a multidisciplinary team of Dutch scientists. To answer these questions the research team, with three AMOLF research groups and led by TU Delft, aims to build a living synthetic cell from lifeless biomolecules, using laboratory evolution and artificial intelligence for the first time. The ten-year research program to do so, entitled “Evolving life from non-life” or simply “EVOLF”, was awarded 40 million euro by the Dutch Research Council (NWO) as part of the Summit grants scheme.

AMOLF group leader Kristina Ganzinger has been selected by the Oncode Institute to join as Junior Investigator. The institute selected 10 junior investigators out of 72 applicants. The researchers were selected based on the quality of their science, expertise and potential to contribute to the mission of Oncode Institute: to accelerate breakthrough discoveries and speed up their translation into new diagnostics and treatments for cancer patients. Ganzinger will also continue her work at AMOLF leading the group Physics of Cellular Interactions.

To understand the fundamental processes of life we need to understand the language that cells use to communicate with each other and to orchestrate their joint behavior. This is important for vital processes such as DNA replication, protein synthesis and signal transmission. Since cells communicate through interactions of molecules, researchers at AMOLF and the Max-Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Munich developed a technique to study individual molecules in model membranes. They first published the results in 2021 (see reference below). Using self-renewing DNA-based fluorescent labels, they were able to observe them for extended times. Overcoming the constraints of conventional fading fluorescent markers, the new technique enables unprecedented quantitative studies of molecular interactions in living systems. Now, their latest advancements on this DNA-PAINT based single-particle tracking method (DNA-PAINT-SPT) also enables them to see individual molecules binding to each other in live cells. This study was published in Nature Communications on July 19th (see reference below).

The KNAW has selected ten new members for ‘De Jonge Akademie’, one of which is AMOLF group leader Kristina Ganzinger (Physics of Cellular Interactions). Members of ‘De Jonge Akademie’ are researchers who are interested in the role science plays in society and who have finished their doctoral studies less than ten years ago.