July 2024 –
We are hiring!! Exciting PhD Opportunities at ETH Zurich! The bioMatter Microfluidics group (Eleonora Secchi, D-BAUG) and the SoftMat Group (Jan Vermant, D-MATL) at ETH Zürich are excited to announce two collaborative PhD projects within the BIOMAC-BP consortium, funded by Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Doctoral Networks HORIZON-MSCA-2023.
For more information and to apply, please visit the ETH Zurich Job Portal.
February 2024
Eleonora will give an invited presentation at the APS March Meeting in Minneapolis, US!
Join her at Session A43, Mon. March 4, 9:12 a.m. – 9:48 a.m. CST, Auditorium 1, where she will delve into the fascinating world of flow-driven biofilm assembly and dynamics in fluids.
Thrilled to share the outcome of a fantastic collaboration – a testament to the power of microfluidics in tackling antibiotic resistant pathogenic bacteria. Thanks, Julian Baer, for leading, and to all the team members for the great teamwork!
Thanks a lot, Iris Mickein, for this nice article describing our research and achievements at D-BAUG, ETH Zürich! I hope it will foster additional scientific and industrial collaborations!
January 2024
Fresh off the press in Lab on a Chip! Check out our latest publication on microfluidic approaches in microbial ecology – a comprehensive review written alongside some truly amazing colleagues. Thanks for the journey, Giovanni Stefano Ugolini, Miaoxiao Wang, Roberto Pioli, Martin Ackermann, and Roman Stocker!
A big congrats to Prof. Laura Stancanelli for this great work on drag reduction!
Using a wall-attached magnetic fluid film, a wall drag reduction of up to 90% in channel flow can be achieved. This holds an incredible potential for energy efficiency and antifouling during fluid transport.
December 2023
Exciting news! Our paper has been recognized as an ASMicrobiology Top Cited paper in 2023! Grateful for the exciting collaboration with Marina Caldara, Cristina Belgiovine, and Roberto Rusconi. Thanks!
Thanks a lot, Zaira Heredia Ponce and Leo Eberl! It was great working with you to unveil the significant role of prophage endolysins in the formation of biofilm streamers by using Burkholderia cenocepacia as a model bacterium.
November 2023
Hot from the press, the results of a fantastic collaboration led by Cameron Boggon!
Introducing bio-sCAPA, a cutting-edge bacterial patterning technique that allows the creation of defined cells’ geometric arrangements and the monitoring of their growth in various nutrient environments. Perfect for unlocking single-cell insights within large populations! An example? Our study on bacterial subpopulations of antibiotic-tolerant bacteria, the persisters, a frequent cause of chronic infections.
October 2023
En Route to Leeds! Eleonora is ready to embark on a journey to the “Complex rheology in biological systems” meeting, hosted by The Royal Society. It’s an absolute honor to be invited as a speaker, and I can’t wait to share her insights on the interplay between biofilm rheology and flow.
Thanks to Dr Charley Schaefer, Professor Lorna Dougan, and Professor Gareth McKinley for the invitation!
August 2023
We are delighted to share a piece of fantastic news with you: Eleonora’s position at ETH Zürich has become permanent!
We will continue researching at the Institute of Environmental Engineering. We will keep working to understand the physics and environmental factors controlling biofilms.
February 2023
We are thrilled to present the result of a collaboration that began during a sunny afternoon in Maine (US) during a Gordon Research Conferences and ended up in PNAS. Thanks to Sang Hyun Lee and Peter K. Kang for the journey!
July 2022
Bacterial biofilms often clog porous materials. This is a well-known problem in medical, environmental, and technological settings. However, until now, little was known about the mechanism influencing the creation and rearrangement of flow paths within biofilms. In collaboration with Dr. Jimenez-Martinez at Eawag, we show that the competition between hydrodynamics and microbial growth governs the opening and closing of preferential flow paths within biofilms. Curious? Read more in this PNAS paper.
June 2022
Flowing polymer solutions are ubiquitous, and so are bacteria. Some time ago, we asked ourselves a simple but unexplored question: How does the rheological behavior of polymer solutions affect the transport of motile bacteria in flow? This paper in Frontiers in Physics is the answer! Thanks to Giovanni for leading the effort and to all the collaborators for their precious input.
We have an opening for a Master’s thesis followed by an internship on developing a microfluidic platform to study bacterial-induced plastic biodegradation! The project is a collaboration between our group at ETH Zürich and Nestlé.
Are you looking for an M.S.C thesis at the interface between material science and microbiology? Then, you should check this link out! In collaboration with Prof. Isa (ETH, D-MATL) and Prof. Mathys (ETH, D-HEST), we will use bacterial spores as building blocks to enable the design of living or self-healing materials following routes developed for colloidal particles.
Did you know that the interplay between surface adhesion and growth controls the 3D morphology of biofilms? In collaborative work with Jan Vermont and Steffen Geisel (D-MATL, ETH Zurich), recently published in eLife, we show how surface-attached biofilms undergo a mechanical buckling instability and form a channel network that rapidly increases the effective volume occupied by the biofilm and facilitates bacterial movement inside it.
Interested in biofilm in porous media? Join the H034 Session “Biogeochemical and Hydrodynamical Processes in Biofilms and Porous Media” at AGU 2022 Fall Meeting, taking place in Chicago, 12-16 December 2022.
Abstract submission is open until 3 August.
May 2022
Poster award at the conference Biofilms10. Congratulations to Sam Charlton for winning the Best Poster Award at the Biofilms10. Very well done!
We have a new chapter of our biofilm streamers’ story!
We designed a microfluidic platform to reproducibly form streamers and characterize their morphology, biochemical composition, and rheology in situ. It is based on a hydrodynamic trick I hope you will enjoy! Kudos to Giovanni Savorana for his fantastic work! Thanks to Soft Matter for including this work in their Soft Matter Emerging Investigators Series.
April 2022
Presentation award at the conference AERC 2022. Congratulations to Steffen Geisel for winning the Best Presentation Award at the AERC 2022. Great job!
March 2022
Finally out on PNAS– our story about biofilm filaments suspended in flow, the streamers! We had to develop new tools to unravel how the biochemical composition of streamers determines their mechanical stability and rheological behaviour. We even learned how to control their formation! However, streamers are still an unexplored system, and we are looking forward to giving our next contribution to their biophysical investigation! Thanks to the incredible team I had the privilege to work with!
Happy Women’s Day!
To celebrate this special day, Frontiers in Soft Matter launched a dedicated Research Topic, “Women in Soft Matter“. It is an honor for me to serve as a Topic Editor.
Please share the news – let’s make this Research Topic great together!
We’re now offering a new MSc project in collaboration with Prof. Isa of the Laboratory of Soft materials and Interfaces – Check out the description for an overview of the project! Bacterial spores as building blocks for living materials
February 2022
Would you like to know how to characterize a micron-sized biofilm filament suspended in flow? Check out Giovanni’s recent work on bioRxiv
January 2022
We`re happy to share our latest review paper which focuses upon “Environmental, Microbiological, and Immunological Features of Bacterial Biofilms Associated with Implanted Medical Devices”
December 2021
Check out our latest bioRxiv preprint, in collaboration with Prof. Jan Vermant! “The role of surface adhesion on the macroscopic wrinkling of biofilms“
November 2021
Check out our latest paper published in JoVE! Congratulations Roberto! “Patterning of Microorganisms and Microparticles through Sequential Capillarity-assisted Assembly“. The video will come soon- we will keep you posted!
September 2021
Eleonora is visiting IMEDEA Institute in Mallorca to study the influence of biofilm streamers formation on the downward transport of microplastics in the Ocean, in collaboration with Marco Polin and Idan Tuval.
July 2021
Check out our latest bioRxiv preprint about the specific contribution of bacterial secreted extracellular DNA and exopolysaccharide Pel, two important components in Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilms, to the formation and the mechanical properties of the streamers! “The structural role of bacterial eDNA in the formation of biofilm streamers“
June 2021
Eleonora will be the convener of the “Biochemical and Hydrodynamic Processes in Biofilms and Porous Media” session at AGU (New Orleans, LA and online event – December 13 – 17, 2020). See you online! The deadline for abstract submission is August 4th, 2020.
May 2021
Looking forward to sharing my research with colleagues at the University of Melbourne on May the 5th!
March 2021
Check out our latest bioRxiv preprint, in collaboration with Prof. Paolo Arosio! “Dynamic arrest and aging of biomolecular condensates are regulated by low-complexity domains, RNA and biochemical activity“
Chantal Dillier joined the group to conduct her Master’s Thesis on biofilm-membrane systems, a project in collaboration with Dr. Nicolas Derlon at Eawag. Welcome, Chantal!
February 2021
Check out our latest paper, in collaboration with Dr. Hansjörg Seybold, published in Frontiers in Physics! “Localization in Flow of Non-Newtonian Fluids Through Disordered Porous Media“
Eleonora joined the Journal Topics Board of the journal Bioengineering.
January 2021
Check out our latest paper published in Lab on a chip! Congratulations Roberto! “Sequential capillarity-assisted particle assembly in a microfluidic channel“
Abstract submission for the “MS5: Biochemical processes and biofilms in porous media” session at InterPore2021 is now open! The conference will take place online from May the 31st to June the 3rd. See you online!
September 2020
Poster award at the Italian Soft Days 2020. Giovanni Savorana won the Best Poster Award at the Italian Soft Days 2020. Congratulations Giovanni!
July 2020
The scientific community is being challenged by the COVID19 pandemic as never before. One important aspect was the annulment of all the conferences and seminars in presence. For the first time, we had to give up these rewarding moments of exchange of ideas, feeling a bit like athletes unable to play and perform. Our solution was moving everything online! I must say it’s a tough challenge, but it’s a sign nothing can held exchange back. Impatiently awaiting for the next plane we will take with our poster tube, this is Eleonora’s talk at the Bio Active Fluids seminar series.
Check out our latest paper published in Scientific Reports! “Mapping the local viscosity of non-Newtonian fluids flowing through disordered porous structures“
June 2020
Eleonora will be convener of the “Biochemical and Hydrodynamic Processes in Biofilms and Porous Media” session at AGU (virtual format – December 7-11, 2020). See you online! The deadline for abstract (link: https://agu.confex.com/agu/fm20/prelim.cgi/Session/103669) submission is July 29th, 2020.
Check out our latest paper published in Nature Communications! “The effect of flow on swimming bacteria controls the initial colonization of curved surfaces”
May 2020
Join InterPore2020 online! Call for abstract is currently open.
April 2020
Check out our latest paper published in the New Journal of Physics “Encounter rates between bacteria and small sinking particles“!
March 2020
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic a number of our lab members have been involved with establishing the helpfulETH initiative. helpfulETH is a platform which aims to provide short-term engineering solutions for needs in the healthcare sector caused through the current COVID-19 epidemic situation.
January 2020
Eleonora will be chairing the “Biochemical processes and biofilms in porous media” session at InterPore 2020 held in Qingdao, China, 24 -29 May. See you there!
November 2019
Welcome to Sam who has joined the lab to focus on biofilm formation in the presence of pH gradients.
August 2019
Eleonora Secchi has been awarded a prestigious PRIMA Grant to work on biofilm formation in flow – congrats Eleonora!