Creating tissue-like materials from living or life-like building blocks whose mechanical and chemical interactions can be precisely designed is a highly desirable goal of many fields, with many potential applications in engineering and medicine. Nature creates tissues by self-organization, driven both by chemical signals and by cell division and movement. You will employ advanced fabrication techniques to create microscopic 3D surfaces with bespoke chemical patterns. These patterned surfaces will then be used to steer multicellular self-organization, to give rise to tissues whose structures can be designed at will. The project will focus on controlling the patterning of organoids – small mini-organs that can be grown outside of the body and that exhibit a high degree of self-organization.

You need to meet the requirements for a doctors-degree and must have research experience in a non-Dutch academic environment. We seek candidates with a background in biology, (bio)physics or engineering, with an interest in an engineering-style project. Prior experience with one or more of the following techniques is considered a pre: cell and/or organoid culture; synthetic biology; microscopy; microfabrication; micropatterning by PDMS stamping, photolithography and/or 3D nanoprinting (Nanoscribe); fabrication of chemically functionalized surfaces.

The position is intended as full-time (40 hours / week, 12 months / year) appointment in the service of the Netherlands Foundation of Scientific Research Institutes (NWO-I) for the duration of 3 years, with a salary in scale 10 (CAO-OI) and a range of employment benefits. AMOLF assists any new foreign Postdoc with housing and visa applications and compensates their transport costs and furnishing expenses.

Quantitative Developmental Biology

The position will be joint between the ‘Physics of Cellular Interactions’ and ‘Quantitative Developmental Biology’ research groups at AMOLF. The ‘Physics of Cellular Interactions’ group studies immune cell signaling by live-cell imaging and reconstituting signaling processes in model-membrane systems (“artificial cells”), combining this “synthetic immunology” approach with tools from single-molecule biophysics and microfabrication. The ‘Quantitative Developmental Biology’ group uses a quantitative, physics-inspired approach to study problems in developmental biology, focusing both on the small nematode C. elegans and intestinal organoids. The aim of the research is to elucidate how living organisms reliably build their bodies, maintain their tissues or respond to their environment despite the considerable underlying variability on the molecular level.