Scientific Highlights Archives - Page 2 of 9

2025-12-08T15:45:52+01:000000005231202512

3D reconstruction of a flower-shaped liposome showing phase separated “petals” harboring coacervate “buds”. Copyright: The Authors. Published in Chen C. et. al, ACS Nano (2025) by the American Chemical Society. This publication is licensed under CC-BY 4.0 .

2025-12-08T15:45:52+01:000000005231202512

Programmable Compartmentalisation in Synthetic Cells

The formation and regulation of biomolecular condensates is central to many cellular processes and remains a key challenge in the construction of synthetic cells. Researchers from SoftComp partner Wageningen University & Research in... (Read more)

2025-11-25T17:30:47+01:000000004730202511

Two charged rods in water and counterions, generated with AI, ChatGTP, by the authors of the paper

2025-11-25T17:30:47+01:000000004730202511

Rod-Shaped Colloids Form Wigner Crystal

A long-standing scientific belief has been overturned: researchers from a SoftComp collaboration including Ca’ Foscari Univ. of Venice, Italy, and Univ. of Bordeaux, France, have observed a Wigner crystal forming in rod-like colloidal... (Read more)

2025-02-10T16:22:13+01:000000001328202502

Fig. 2. Schematic illustration of the blending of humins and PLA, the production of humins from sugar-based feedstocks, and the production of PLA from sugar cane crop residues. Copyright: Dilhan Kandemir. All rights reserved.

2025-02-10T16:22:13+01:000000001328202502

Upcycling Humins into Valuable Materials

Advancing sustainable materials development: Researchers from SoftComp partner KU Leuven, Belgium, have introduced a novel strategy to upcycle humins, a major by-product of biorefineries, into new materials , advancing materials development using sustainable... (Read more)

2025-02-06T15:20:15+01:000000001528202502

Figure 1: Aspect ratio is a crucial network building block property, defining network formation, architecture, and mechanics in synthetic and living systems. (Left) Schematic representation of the aspect ratios (AR) of protein L polyprotein constructs and fibrin proto-fibers. (Middle) A schematic representation of the two dominated formation regimes: translation diffusion limited (TDL) where building blocks can only interact by translating their centre of mass; and rotationally diffusion limited (RDL) where building blocks are able to interact purely via rotation about their centre of mass. (Right) The fitted increase in mechanical rigidity as a function of aspect ratio with inserted schematics showing the change in structural topology as the system transitions from TDL to RDL formation above the critical aspect ratio, ARc. Copyright: Image partly published in Hughes M. D. G. et al., Nat. Commun. 14, 5593 (2023) under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

2025-02-06T15:20:15+01:000000001528202502

Biology Exploits Geometry

Impact of Aspect Ratio on Protein Network Assembly: Scientists at SoftComp partner University of Leeds and STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, UK, have made an exciting discovery about the functional advantages of high aspect... (Read more)