Gijsje Koenderink
In November 2019, Gijsje Koenderink (1974) brought the AMOLF research group from Amsterdam to TU Delft. Since then, she has been fulltime professor of Bionanoscience at the Faculty of Applied Sciences.
Her career started with a cum laude dissertation in physical chemistry that was awarded by DSM (1998) and two postdocs at VU Amsterdam and Harvard University (US). Consequently, she became department head Living Matter in 2006 and scientific group leader Biological Soft Matter Physics at NWO-AMOLF, and at the same time also Professor by Special Appointment Biological Soft Matter Physics in Amsterdam. For her research, she received many grants and prestigious awards. Koenderink publishes regularly, is editorial member of Physical Biology and fulfils a large number of (international) functions. For example, as a member of the core team Fundamentals of Health and Disease Theme within the Convergence Health & Technology Alliance, member of NWO Round Table Physics and member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the INM-Leibniz Institute of New Materials (Saarbrücken). She is able to make her research accessible to a wide audience, for example through TedX and other seminars. Since 2023, she is co-director of the Kavli Institute for Nanoscience and Medical Delta professor at Erasmus MC, and in 2024, she was installed as member of the Royal Dutch Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Scientific Advisory Board of the Institut Jacques Monod in Paris, and she entered the Editorial Board of Physical Review X.
Gijsje Koenderijk is a world-leading expert in the field of cell biophysics. The Koenderink Lab research material properties of cells and tissues. ‘The core of what we do is not creating life, but understanding it,’ says Koenderink.
New input through experimental research
‘Experimental research can bring new input to research, diagnostics and therapy,’ states Koenderink. And that might be the most characteristic of the Koenderink Lab: the experimental approach. The goal is to understand the physical mechanisms that make cells and tissues change form, for example. To do so, concepts and methods from physics and biology are combined, such as biophysics, soft matter physics, synthetic biology, and mechano-biology. Through this, groundbreaking discoveries have been done, and the research can have an impact on the medical and nutrition sector, for example. In 2024, a number of publications by Koenderink (and others) came out which clarified these discoveries step by step.
Current research has three aspects
The current research of Koenderink focuses on three aspects: cell mechanics, tissue mechanics, and building synthetic cells. The research lab develops methods to enable measurements in one cell. ‘In the lab, we develop advanced biophysical measurement techniques. Alongside biologists and biomedical researchers, we apply these to cells and tissues,’ says Koenderink. Using innovative methods for biochemical reconstruction of the cytoskeleton of a cell, can determine how cytoskeleton polymers stimulate cell division and cell migration.
In the field of tissue mechanics, groundbreaking experiments have been conducted which show in mammals that mechanical properties of tissue which holds cells together, can cause unique physical effects (stretch rigidity, plasticity and elastomer behaviour).
Building synthetic cells
Because of their immense complexity, measurements alone are not sufficient to learn to understand the functions of cells. By making a bottom-up, simplified synthetic cell model with lifeless components, it is easier to see what a cell does. When using a reductionist approach, you have more control over what you add to see what the result is, and what makes a cell change shape, move, and divide. The ultimate ambition is to develop synthetic cells that show life-simulating functions. That is the aim of research consortium BaSyC (Building a Synthetic Cell), which received €19 million from the NWO Gravity programme. Koenderink leads this consortium of researchers from five universities and NWO-AMOLF. It concerns a ten-year research programme (2017-2027) to create an autonomous, self-reproducing synthetic cell through integration of molecular construction blocks. Or, in more simple words: building a synthetic biological cell with lifeless components.
‘Scientists are very consciously working on research which is societally relevant. We should communicate that better.’ And: ‘Research driven by curiosity leads to innovation and impact on a wide range of areas.’ Things said by Gijsje Koenderink in previous interviews. Just like: ‘Fundamentally understanding life in a cell will generate incredible intellectual, scientific and technological benefits.’
Collaborative ties with impact
‘Collaboration is the common denominator in my work. What I do is very interdisciplinary and sits in the cross-over area between physics and biology,’ Koenderink once said. And also: ‘Research is working with people, and if that collaboration is good, this can be a major success factor.’ Partly through these collaborative ties, the research area could develop at an increased pace, and TU Delft can profile itself world-wide as a top institute, frontrunning nanobioscience. Recently, Koenderink became co-director of the Delft Kavli Institute of Nanoscience. This institute is part of a series of five top institutes and is the only branch outside of the US. It forms a collective of researchers - within and outside of TU Delft – that all work on the nanoscale. Additionally, as Medical Delta professor, Koenderink is tied to Erasmus Medical Centre and the Leiden University Medical Centre. This collaboration focuses on research of cancer, alongside biophysics and cancer cell biologists. ‘Actively working on research proposals together, with a communal request for funding,’ so says Koenderink. The number of collaborative ties has increased gradually in 2024 and have also been successful in receiving funding (see the impact bullets for this).
Impact on medical diagnostics
‘I expect that some aspects will have a practical application after five years,’ says Koenderink about the impact of her research. She specifically refers to the diagnostics and therapy for diseases where cell or tissue mechanisms are disturbed, such as cancer, fibrosis and thrombosis. Many diagnoses are still made on genetic or molecular basis. But the research done by Koenderink Lab can lead to new ways of diagnosing diseases in an early stage, based on measured mechanical differences in tissues or cells. ‘I expect that our method will be very powerful’, Koenderink emphasises. These insights can also be useful to developing new therapies. ‘If we understand how cells decide what to do, we can also measure what goes wrong in a disease,’ so says Koenderink. ‘And knowledge about the material properties of tissues are relevant to cancer research, because tissues can influence the invasion and spread of cancer cells.’ But the research can also have impact outside of medical science. The constantly renewing materials that forms the cytoskeleton of a cell can inspire the development of new synthetic materials. ‘New design principles from nature that are very different from the concepts we use to this date to make advanced materials,’ is what Koenderink calls them.
Koenderinks Personal Passion Pride
‘Since being in Delft, we are transforming as research group. We develop from fundamental research of mechanics of cells, to a better understanding of the role of mechanics in diseases. For example, we look at metastase, the spread of cancer cells. Or at fibroma, skin tumours in which mechanics are disturbing the tissue and the cell. Or at thrombosis, where blood clots can develop and let go. My dream is that we can connect our fundamental research to this type of problems, which are urgent in society.’
TU Delft offers tremendous richness
The Koenderink Lab, as part of the Bionanoscience department of TU Delft, is made possible through the TU Excellence Fund. ‘There is a broad spectrum of interdisciplinary research here,’ says Koenderink. ‘Additionally, it is a dynamic infrastructure, in which all kinds of ideas are shared, and collaborative ties develop. TU Delft itself forms an even bigger ecosystem, which provides tremendous richness in collaborative opportunities with other disciplines. On top of that, the health and technology collaborative ties are even closer. In short: my research group improved TU Delft by sharing our knowledge and with our strong connection to biomedical research. But the other way around is just as important. The colleagues from TU Delft and the entire ecosystem here share their knowledge with us, which makes our research richer as well.’
Meat coming from TU Delft?
Meatable is an international initiative for research and production of cultured meat. The company has the ambition to produce cultured meat on a large scale, which has the nutritional profile of, looks like, and tastes like traditional meat. But produced without animals, humans or the planet getting harmed. In 2024, their cultured pork is probably found on the menu in restaurants of Singapore. Meatable has collaborative ties with DSM, VIVOLTA (producer of healthcare products) and TU Delft (Gijsje Koenderink and prof. dr. Jean-Marc Daran of Industrial Microbiology). They received €1 million from NWO for a five year research programme of microbial production of proteins (ELPs) for biomedical materials and nutrition (vegan meat). These ELPs can support (the repair of) soft tissue. This could help Meatable in developing larger cuts of artificial meat. Within this programme, they conduct a digestability research, among other things.