@BoekhovenLab profile picture
Job Boekhoven @BoekhovenLab

Professor in supramolecular chemistry at the TU Munich figuring out the chemical principles of life.

Joined June 2015
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Job Boekhoven retweeted
Job Boekhoven@BoekhovenLab
May 27
Look at our new fuel-dependent droplets! They emerge, grow, eat their neighbors, produce some offspring, and decay. All in 15 minutes! Why? Our goal is to build life. Life from the bottom up, to better understand, what is life? Paper here: chemistry-europe.onlinelibra…
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Life continuously consumes energy to keep structure and function. But can similar behavior emerge in simpler chemical systems, w/o enzymes? In our work in @J_A_C_S, we test enzyme-free phosphorylation cycle that dynamically regulates peptide assembly pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jac…

Enzyme-Free Phosphorylation with Kinetic Gating in a De Novo Coiled-Coil System

Phosphorylation is among the most ubiquitous and essential posttranslational modifications in biological systems. It is regulated by highly complex enzymatic networks. Here, we explore enzyme-free...

pubs.acs.org
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5/ Our long-term goal is not simply to create dynamic assemblies. We want to develop synthetic systems that can perform work For molecular motors and pumps, energy consumption alone is not enough: the reaction kinetics must be coupled to the supramolecular state of the system.
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In biology, this coupling allows chemical energy to be rectified into directional processes like transport and pumping By engineering similar kinetic asymmetries into simple synthetic systems, we hope to move toward chemically fueled molecular machinery!
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Job Boekhoven retweeted
Job Boekhoven@BoekhovenLab
11 Nov 2025
I’m happy to share Hector Soria Carrera and Leonie Kauling’s recent work in @Chem_CP! A thread below. cell.com/chem/fulltext/S2451…

Primitive genotype-phenotype coupling in fuel-dependent synthetic cells with an autocatalyst

A challenge in the de novo synthesis of life is coupling genotype with phenotype. To achieve this, we use fuel-dependent synthetic cells that host a low-fidelity replicator. This replicator increases...

cell.com
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We found that fuel-driven droplets can prevent such autocatalytic fibers forming-when the peptide is turned over into phase-separate into droplets, we did not observe any plaques. This suggests that transiently capturing the peptides inside droplets prevents fiber formation.
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Our droplets are a model for the biomolecular condensates in our cells. Does turning over such condensates prevent aging of peptides in our cells too? It is too early to tell. Besides, others have shown the opposite: droplets accelerate fibrillation. tinyurl.com/2myycjfd

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Such fundamental studies help us elucidate the complexities of peptide assembly, which are central to neurodegenerative diseases.
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We found a peptide that forms amyloid fibers—the types associated with neurodegenerative diseases. Although the exact pathway is unknown, a complication is that these fibers grow autocatalytically—once a fiber is formed, it helps form new ones. tinyurl.com/54x79mxz
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I’m happy to share Hector Soria Carrera and Leonie Kauling’s recent work in @Chem_CP! A thread below. cell.com/chem/fulltext/S2451…

Primitive genotype-phenotype coupling in fuel-dependent synthetic cells with an autocatalyst

A challenge in the de novo synthesis of life is coupling genotype with phenotype. To achieve this, we use fuel-dependent synthetic cells that host a low-fidelity replicator. This replicator increases...

cell.com
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We also have to show that genes compete (through the synthetic cells). For that, we need multiple (hundreds?) replicators combined to form a real genotype. So, plenty of work to do.
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Eternally grateful to the team, funding agencies (@ERC_Research, @mattertolife, @AvHStiftung), and the @TU_Muenchen for continuous support.
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