Shielded by a self-produced matrix of extracellular polymers, bacteria growing in biofilms survive antibiotic concentrations orders of magnitude above those that eradicate the same strain in suspension. The matrix limits penetration, internal gradients generate tolerant and dormant subpopulations, and the resulting reservoir sustains chronic, recurrent infection. Incremental improvement of existing antibiotics will not solve this. It requires a mechanism of action that does not depend on chemistry at all.

The Quasi-Living Materials Research Group is looking for a postdoctoral researcher to determine whether such a mechanism works inside biofilms. The contract will be within the framework of the Project PhagoSynCell (ERC CoG). Our ambition is to create drug-free, living-like therapeutics, opening radical new avenues in the fight against multidrug resistance. We developed synthetic cells that fight bacteria using a biomimetic form of artificial phagocytosis, a process to date only observed in living organisms. These phagocytic synthetic cells (PSCs)



destroy bacteria by physically engulfing them, a route no antibiotic uses, and one to which resistance cannot be acquired by the mechanisms that defeat conventional drugs.

Whether artificial phagocytosis survives contact with a biofilm is an open question. The matrix that defeats antibiotics may equally trap a synthetic predator, or it may be the very medium through which a soft, deformable vesicle can travel. You will answer it and optimized the system for maximum antimicrobial effect. This position brings microbiology into a group built on chemistry and biophysics, and it is the expertise we do not have: you will own the bacterial side of the project. You will work with our full infrastructure for vesicle assembly, synthesis and interaction analysis, with access to IBEC’s BSL-2 facilities, and in collaboration with ISGlobal and our international network of antimicrobial-resistance specialists across Europe, Asia and th

📌 Investigador posdoctoral (Barcelona)
🏢 Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC)
📍 Barcelona