People

Marileen Dogterom

Group leader

Medical Delta Professor (Leiden Institute of Physics)

Prof. dr. Marileen Dogterom is a University Professor at the TU Delft and Medical Delta Professor at Leiden University. She is internationally renowned expert in experimental cell biophysics with a pioneering track record in biophysical research of the microtubule cytoskeleton. Over the years, her group has systematically worked on increasing functional biological complexity in reconstitution experiments, which paved the way for her current and future ambition to build synthetic cells. She published ~100 papers in high-ranking physics and biology journals. Dogterom actively and frequently collaborates with leading national and international researchers in both physics and biology. Since 2017, she leads the Dutch Consortium BaSyC (Building a Synthetic Cell) and is one of the initiators of the European Synthetic Cell Initiative.

Initially trained as a theoretical physicist, Marileen Dogterom moved abroad (Paris, Princeton, and Bell Labs) for graduate and postdoctoral training in the internationally rapidly developing field of cellular biophysics. In 1997, at the age of 29, she came back to the Netherlands as an experimental group leader at the Institute AMOLF in Amsterdam, where she became member of the management team in 2003. Under her leadership, half of AMOLF’s research programme became focused on the Physics of Biomolecular Systems. She received a VICI grant by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) in 2007, and a prestigious ERC Synergy Grant for the project “MODELCELL” in 2013. In 2014 she moved to TU Delft to head the Bionanoscience Department (part of the Kavli Institute for Nanoscience). She was elected EMBO member in 2013, Academia Europaea member in 2015, and received the Dutch Physica Prize in 2015. In 2016 she was elected member, and in 2017 Board Member, of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). In 2018 she received the Spinoza award, and was named 2019 Fellow of the Biophysical Society. And as of June 1, 2022, she has been appointed president of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW).

Ilina Bareja

Postdoc

Nemo Andrea

PhD

Reza Amini

Postdoc

Ali Maleki

PhD

Yash Jawale

PhD

Beatriz Orozco Monroy

PhD

Olga Novikova-Rook

PhD

Sinda Khanfir

Guest PhD

Eli van der Sluis

Technician

Esengül Yildirim

Technician

Roland Dries

Technician

Ashmiani van den Berg

Technician

Management Assistant

Alumni

Vladimir Volkov Queen Mary University of London 2022
Celine Alkemade TU Delft, The Netherlands 2021
Harmen Wierenga   2021
Kim Vendel RIVM, The Netherlands 2020
Anne Doerr Nature Biology, Berlin, Germany 2020
Maurits Kok TU Delft, The Netherlands 2020
Louis Reese   2020
Marco Saltini Uppsala University, Sweden 2019
Marian Baclayon ABN Amro, Amsterdam 2017
Mathijs Vleugel Nature Protocols, Londen 2016
Stef van der Meulen Anchormen, Amsterdam 2016
Nuria Taberner QBiC RIKEN, Osaka 2016
Florian Huber Kändi 2015
Magdalena Preciado Lopez NIH, USA 2015
Gesa Helms University of Heidelberg, Germany 2015
Sophie Roth IMEC, Belgium 2015
Georges Weber Education Nationale, France 2014