Do you want to design and construct synthetic life-like cells? A major goal of synthetic biology is to create life-like artificial cells from non-living components, i.e. the bottom-up approach. This exciting project will focus on designing, constructing, and testing synthetic cells with multiple sub-compartments. Just like their living counterparts (i.e. eukaryotic cells), synthetic cells with different inner compartments allow multiple and advanced functionalities.

The building blocks will be lipid vesicles, both large unilamellar vesicles (LUVs) and giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs), as well as membrane embedded and encapsulated proteins. To do so, the student will develop methodologies for lipid vesicle formation, including bulk techniques such as water-in-oil emulsions, and microfluidic systems (e.g. micro-droplets). Bottom-up synthetic cells can shed light on natural biological cell functions but can also be used for future industrial applications like biofuel production or in biomedical applications such as drug delivery.

Possible outcomes and goals:

• Studying the interaction of collections of synthetic cells (i.e. proto-tissues) for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine applications.
• Setting-up enzymatic reactions between sub-compartments to model and understand eukaryotic cellular metabolism.
• Developing new microfluidic tools to construct multi-compartment synthetic cells for drug delivery applications.

Methods:

• Lipid vesicle preparation
• Microfluidics
• Confocal microscopy
• Membrane protein reconstitution
• Cell-free protein expression

Location and skills: The project will be carried out at the Institute for Bioengineering (IBioE) at the University of Edinburgh. The student will attain skills in microfluidics, lipid chemistry, membrane protein reconstitution, optical microscopy, as well as data and image analysis. The student will also learn various experimental techniques including microfabrication, protein preparation, lipid handling, and confocal microscopy. These skills will be essential for a student perusing an industrial career in the biotechnology sector; in addition they will be important for an academic career in Chemical or (Bio)engineering.

Career development:

• Institutional and Peer Support: you will benefit from an excellent supportive environment at the School of Engineering within the Institute for Bioengineering at The University of Edinburgh.
• International Collaboration: the successful student will also have to opportunity visit and interact with our network of international collaborators. 
• Impactful publications and dissemination: the student will also benefit from strong support towards publications in world class journals (including the ACS Nano and Lab on a Chip) and participation in major conferences (including the Biophysical Meeting and the European Biophysical Congress).
• Teaching and Research Development: the potential student will have the opportunity (once trained and familiar with relevant materials) to become a teaching assistant for courses offered at the School of Engineering.

Please note this position will remain open until filled. Please contact tom.robinson@ed.ac.uk before applying.