Marileen Dogterom, Professor, Department of Bionanoscience, Delft University of Technology, Kavli Institute of Nanoscience, Delft, The Netherlands, will present a talk on "Reconstituting cytoskeletal systems in artificial cells."

ABSTRACT

In my group we are interested in understanding how dynamic and force-generating properties of the cytoskeleton contribute to the spatial organization of cells. I will highlight recent advances (and challenges) in our efforts to reconstitute minimal, functional cytoskeletal systems in artificial confinement. An example is the reconstitution of basic mitotic spindles in microfluidic droplets. These efforts fit in a long-term ambition to build, in collaboration with others, a minimal synthetic cell from scratch.