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“We collaborate with life in the interest of planet and society”
Our mission:
NextSkins develops new living interfaces made up of specialized layers that can protect, sense, provide strength, regenerate, and deliver therapeutic responses. Our mission is to create platform technologies that advance biologically engineered living materials and to demonstrate their potential through two proof-of-concept applications: Living Therapeutic Materials (LTM) and Living Regenerative Materials (LRM).
Team Nextskins
Meet the team
Dr. Marie-Eve Aubin-Tam
Marie-Eve Aubin-Tam is leading a research group in the Bionanoscience department at TU Delft (Netherlands) since 2012. She obtained her Ph.D. in biological engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2008, and then followed by a Postdoc in single-molecule biophysics also at MIT. Her expertise lies at the interface of biophysics and material science. She seeks to understand the physics and biology of living matter, and then use this knowledge to develop material with superior performance, as well as new production methods that are more sustainable. Together with her team, she pioneered the use of bacterial manufacturing of biomimetic nacre-like CaCO3 layered high-performance materials.
Prof. Markus Linder
Markus Linder is Professor in Biomolecular Materials at Aalto University. Markus worked previously as a research professor at VTT Technical Research Centre in Finland. His research has focused on protein engineering on cellulose degrading enzymes, hydrophobins, and structural proteins such as silks. A long term aim has been to use engineered proteins as components in materials and his research has through this had a strong focus on materials such as cellulose, graphene, and composites. In the NextSkins project he works on integrating protein functionalities in living materials by production in different coexisting microbial strains.
Prof. Tom Ellis
Tom Ellis is Professor in Synthetic Genome Engineering at Imperial College London. Tom has a degree in Molecular Biology from Oxford University and a PhD in DNA-binding Pharmacology from Cambridge University. Tom worked in a drug development company in London, then spent two years as a postdoc investigating synthetic biology at Boston University before starting his own group at Imperial College London. His research team develop synthetic biology and genome engineering tools for Baker’s yeast, bacteria and mammalian cells and apply these in projects to make therapeutic molecules, biological sensors and engineered living materials (ELMs).
Prof. Elvin Karana
Elvin Karana is Professor of Materials Innovation and Design at TU Delft, The Netherlands, where she founded and directs the Materials Experience Lab. Giving emphasis to materials’ role in design as experiential and yet deeply rooted in their inherent properties, Elvin explores and navigates the productive shifts between materials science and design for materials and product development in synergy. In 2019, she founded the creative biodesign research lab Material Incubator, that aims at designing materials that incorporate living organisms and exploring their potential in fostering an alternative notion of the everyday.
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Jeong-Joo is a post-doctoral researcher at the department of Bionanoscience at TU Delft, the Netherlands. Before joining the TU Delft as a postdoc, he obtained his Ph.D. in bio-based material at Korea University, mainly coming up with the fabrication process using microbial metabolites to develop sustainable methods. In parallel, he focuses on the ecological and physiological roles of microbial metabolites in nature to get inspiration. As a member of NextSkins, he contributes to the material fabrication process and research on how to utilize bacterial cellulose and biomineralization in a very feasible way.
J.J.Oh@tudelft.nl
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Joana Martins is an Assistant Professor in the Biodesign field at TU Delft, The Netherlands. Before joining TU Delft, in January 2022, she was an Assistant Researcher at CIIMAR, University of Porto (UP), Portugal, where she was developing her research in the Marine Biotechnology field. She is a Microbiologist with a PhD in Biology from the Faculty of Sciences of University of Porto, Portugal.
At TU Delft Joana is co-coordinating the first Biodesign courses offered by Industrial Design Engineering faculty. Her research aims to explore the potential of microorganisms, with a focus on cyanobacteria, in Biodesign aiming the ‘decrease of ecological footprint’ and ‘novel materials expressions’.
J.Martins@tudelft.nl
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Jasper van Heusden is a project manager and research funding specialist at TU Delft for the department of Bionanoscience at the faculty of Applied Sciences. He advises and supports researchers of this department with application processes and project management. In this capacity he contributes to the managerial side of the NextSkins project.
Before joining the TU Delft in his current role, Jasper was a behavioural biologist and ecologist who did research into sexual selection using various model organisms like Cichlid fish and Damselfies. After completing his studies in Leiden and short projects scattered over Europe he settled for a PhD project on population genetics at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain, researching the genetic component of migration behaviour in song birds. He is still active in Bat research and conservation.
Jasper.Vanheusden@tudelft.nl
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Jun Wu is an Associate Professor of Design Engineering at TU Delft, The Netherlands. Before joining TU Delft in Sep. 2016, he was a Marie Curie postdoc fellow at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, DTU Denmark. He obtained his Ph.D. in Computer Science in 2015 from TU Munich, Germany, and a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering in 2012 from Beihang University, China.
Jun's research is focused on computational design and digital fabrication, with an emphasis on topology optimization (which is sometimes referred to as generative design). His work received best paper awards at international conferences including the Symposium on Solid and Physical Modeling 2019, and the World Congress of Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization 2019. He received the SMA Young Investigator Award from the Solid Modelling Association in 2021. He is on the editorial board of Computer-Aided Design (Elsevier) and Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization (Springer).
J.Wu-1@tudelft.nl
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Ward Groutars is a designer and researcher with a fascination for biology and a passion for combining different creative techniques. During his studies, Ward specialised in Biodesign, collaborating with living organisms in the development of novel materials and products. By swapping the workshop for a laboratory, he got acquainted with microbiological techniques and methods as well as various species of bacteria and algae. After his studies, Ward worked as a researcher on the Coloured by Flavo project, where he investigated the structural colour produced by Flavobacteria and the potential that these offer for interaction design. This culminated in the development of a living interface in which the dynamic colourations of these bacteria inform human viewers on various environmental or digital factors. In his upcoming PhD. research, Ward will focus on the notion of symbiosis in Biodesign and how this might affect the role of the designer.
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Ivy is a PhD student in Prof Tom Ellis’ group in the department of Bioengineering at Imperial College London. Her research interest prioritises engineering novel genetic pathways to functionalise cellulose produced by Komagataeibacter spp. bacteria.
Prior to starting her PhD, Ivy worked for the NextSkins industrial partner Modern Synthesis, a biomaterial innovation company. In her past role as a Scientist, she helped develop Modern Synthesis’ proprietary biofabrication platform using materials from bacteria to produce a new class of cellulose-based textiles and composites to displace petrochemical dependence.
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Verindi Vekemans is a PhD candidate at the department of Industrial Design at TU Delft, The Netherlands. She works within Elvin Karana’s Material Experience Lab and will be involved in researching and designing with living regenerative skins. The goal of her PhD research is to develop generative design tools for bio-designers. Before starting her PhD, she obtained her bachelor’s and master’s degree in Industrial Design at the Eindhoven University of Technology, in which she has focused on shape-changing interfaces, interactive soft materials and 3D printing.
V.C.Vekemans@tudelft.nl
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Franka van der Linden will be a postdoctoral researcher at the TUDelft starting February 2023. Within the NextSkins project she will join the research on self-healing materials, more specifically on the proteins within the material. Currently she is working on finishing her PhD at the University of Amsterdam, on the development of genetically encoded biosensors for quantitative imaging of calcium concentrations within living cells. Franka obtained her bachelor’s degree in Life, Science and Technology at the universities of Delft and Leiden, followed by a master in Molecular Life Sciences at the Wageningen UR.
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Likhitha Kummetha is a PhD candidate in Marie-Eve Aubin-Tam’s group in the department of Bionanoscience in TU Delft, the Netherlands. She completed her master’s in the department of Chemical Engineering in TU Delft with focus on product engineering.
During her master’s, she worked to develop microfluidic aptamer based optical biosensor for quantification of cytokines in sweat. Prior to this, she obtained her bachelor’s in Chemical Engineering and Material Science from BITS Pilani, India.
In her PhD, she is working on the fabrication of self-healing nacre-like biocomposites made of bacterial cellulose and microbially precipitated biominerals.
L.R.Kummetha@tudelft.nl
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Karoliina Elfving is a PhD student in Professor Markus Linder’s Biomolecular Materials research group at Aalto University. Karoliina has a background in microbiology, which she studied in University of Helsinki. Karoliina completed her master’s thesis in Markus’ research group where she developed an in vivo screening system for peptide-protein pairs to improve the rate of protein ligation.
In the NextSkins project her focus will be in creating and optimizing an expression of a fusion protein in yeast to develop a hydrophobic outer layer for living materials.
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Salla Koskela is a post-doctoral researcher in Professor Markus Linder's group at Aalto University, Finland. She obtained her Ph.D. in biotechnology in 2022 at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden, focusing on enzymatic production of nanocellulose and cellulose-based materials.
Her M.Sc. and B.Sc. degrees are from University of Helsinki, where she studied fungal biotechnology. Her key areas of expertise are protein production in fungal hosts, carbohydrate-active enzymes, and the use of enzymes and proteins in fabrication of materials such as hydrogels and films. As a member of the NextSkins project, she contributes to the fabrication of multi-layered engineered living materials (ELMs) that take advantage of the robust natural polymers silk and cellulose as a scaffold for living cells.
For this aim, she is expressing engineered enzymes and proteins in yeast that can be utilized for the assembly of the layers and to enhance the barrier properties of the outer layer.
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Koray Malci is a postdoc researcher in the Ellis Lab at Imperial. He obtained his bachelor's and master's degrees from Istanbul Technical University, where he studied molecular biology, genetics and biotechnology. His PhD at the Bioengineering Department at the University of Edinburgh saw him designing yeast cell factories using novel genome editing tools to produce early-step Taxol precursors.
In the NextSkins project, he works on microbial strain design using synthetic biology to develop microbial consortia-generated engineered living materials. To do this, he is developing modular genetic toolkits and automation methods to engineer yeast strains, cellulose-producing bacteria and Bacillus subtilis.
Previous contributors
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Rahul is an Academy Research Fellow (Junior PI) in Professor Markus Linder’s group at Aalto University. He obtained his D.Sc. (Technology) in Bioengineering in 2015 from Tampere University (then Tampere University of Technology) for his research works on biological hydrogen production.
Since procuring the Postdoctoral grant from The Academy of Finland (an agency within the administrative branch of the Finnish Ministry of Education, Science and Culture) in 2019, Rahul’s prime research focus has been on developing sustainable bioprocesses and genetic engineering tools for bacterial nanocellulose producing bacteria. In 2022, he was awarded the Academy Research Fellow grant.
The project, on-going at Aalto University, focusses in studying the fundamental genetic facets of protein secretion in Komagataeibacter spp. to develop ‘smart’ functional material for microplastic depolymerization.
In the NextSkins project, Rahul will be collaborating as a supporting member.
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Raphael is a postdoctoral researcher and designer engaged in critical explorations of bio-technology in the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI): Through making, growing, writing, and speculating, Raphael strives to continue unpacking the social and cultural implications of considering living agents – namely microbes – as computational materials for interaction. Following his Master’s in Design Interactions from Royal College of Art in London, Raphael gained his PhD from Queen Mary University of London. His thesis (2020), titled Effects of Microbial Integration on Player Experiences of Hybrid Biological Digital Games, investigated ways in which distinct microbial materiality could be harnessed into design processes towards enhancing playful experiences of human-computer interaction. Outcomes of the research, along with his latest studies on viruses and DNA, have been published at major international academic venues, including ACM CHI.
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Ramon van der Valk is a research technician and lab manager at TU Delft for the department of Bionanoscience in the Netherlands.He obtained his Ph.D. at Leiden University for work combining molecular genetics, biophysics, and biochemistry. Having come into contact with multiple different fields he can understand how they can not only synergise beautifully, but also clash in their respective perspectives. Using his previous interdisciplinary insights he will be playing a supporting role in the NextSkins project, helping where necessary to smooth the incorporation of new ideas and provide insights, expertise, and techniques to aid in overcoming hurdles.
R.A.VanderValk@tudelft.nl
Impact Panel
NextSkins is supported by an impact panel consisting of experts from a wide array of disciplines and with varying expertise; e.g. scientists, medical professionals, business developers and commercial companies. They provide feedback on all aspects of the project to aid NextSkins to reach its full potential and maximise impact and output.