UTFacultiesTNWChemical Reaction Networks (CRN)

Chemical Reaction Networks (CRN)

WE ARE

An interdisciplinary research group, and host researchers with backgrounds in Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, Computational Physics and Mathematics. Please visit our Teams page for more information.

At the University of Twente, we are part of the Department of Molecules and Materials (MOLMAT) and the Research center for Brain-Inspired Nano Systems (BRAINS), and we collaborate with the reseach groups; Molecular NanoFabrication (MnF), Mathematics of Operations Research

OUR GOAL

is to create molecular materials for special-purpose computing, leveraging the intrinsic ability of chemical reaction networks to solve many differential equations simultaneously.

Molecules are inherently dynamic in nature and, therefore, are an obvious choice for creating intelligent systems that may sense, adapt, and learn. We aim to provide a foundation for the development of fundamentally different hardware and software architectures, based on non-binary, non-linear, and non-electric properties intrinsic to networks of chemical reactions.

OUR approach

Centers around exploring and demonstrating the operating principles in networks of interacting molecules under out-of-equilibrium conditions: We 

Design and control
chemical feedback loops

Develop
‘reactive’ microfluidic devices

Translate
CRNs into mathematical structures

to be used as 
in-memory computing units

to enable 
chemical communication

to enable 
programmable chemical functions

News 

01-07-2023: Taghi Moazzenzade joins our team as a post doctoral researcher and will strengthen our team with his expertise in the design of surface-based biosensors. 



15-06-23: Hazal wins a poster award for his contribution at the 2st Münster Symposium on Intelligent Matter. Many congratulations on your first award! See also: BRAINS PhD students win poster prizes at MüSIM23 (utwente.nl). With Hazal, our group has now won this award for the second year in a row :)


12-05-2023: Teams event. We visited Deventer on our teams event. We enjoyed a wonderful boat trip across the Ijssel. 


01-05-2023: Thomas van Poppel joins our team as a M.Sc. student to work on his literature thesis “Common structure underlying CRNs”. 



27-03-2023: Albert Wong selected as a Tutorial Innovator at the UT. 



01-03-2023: Albert Wong was awarded a TKI Green Chemistry & Circularity PPP grant (€178k) for his proposal “Capturing dynamics in protein digestion with chemical reaction networks (CRNs)-on-chip”. PPP allowance projects stimulates collaborative research between public and private parties. Read more: https://chemistrynl.com/projects/.


17-02-2023: Salma Ramon Carroasco joins our team as a M.Sc. student to work on her thesis "Design of thioester-triggered biocompatible hydrogels". This work will be carried out in collaboration with Paez's lab.


07-11-2022: Research visit. Thank you for visiting us Sonia Vela Gallego. Happy to further establish our collaboration with you and Andrés de la Escosura on Dynamics in thiol-driven replicating networks! 


01-11-2022: Albert Wong receives a KMNFi facility grant for his proposal "Printing of Chemical Feedbacks enables Molecular Intelligence". This grant provides facility access for our group to Karlsruhe Micro Nano Facilities, funded by Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, KIT, and will significantly strenghten our possibilities to develop microfluidic devices that can create spatially-organized networks of chemical reactions. Many thanks to my collaborator Dr. Sylwia Sekula-Neuner from n.able GmbH.


24-10-2022: We organized our 1st Symposium on “Dynamic Covalent Chemistry (DCC) in water” at the UT. Thank you NWO, Molecules Centre and Polymers Center Twente from MESA+ for sponsoring this event. And many thanks to Paez's lab for leading this effort! This Symposium builds a community of researchers working on DCC in water, both at the fundamental and applied fronts. The invited presentations showcased recent developments of DCC in water at the molecular, materials and system’s level.



01-09-2022: We organized the 2022 ed. of NextGenChem@NL, held at in the Van SwinderenHuys in Groningen. The 2-days symposium included a networking event and scientific talks to bring together the early career chemists in the Netherlands. Thanks to our sponsors NWO, KNCV, ChemistryNL, FMS, and all others for making this possible. And many thanks to my co-organizers: Michael Lerch (RUG), Sebastian Beil (RUG), Wim Velema (RUN), and Aayan Banerjee (UT)!


26-06-2022: Albert Wong and Jacopo Movilli represeted our team at the GRC conference on Systems Chemistry in Maine. Thanks GRC for this wonderful opportunity to share our research (through a research and poster presentation by Jacopo), contribute to this community (panel discussion with Albert among others), meet our peers! We look forward to 2024 (where Albert elected as the organiser of the next GRS)!


22-06-2022: Dmitrii Kriukov wins a poster award for his contribution at the 1st Münster Symposium on Intelligent Matter. Many congratulations on your first award! 



20-05-2022: Yanna Kraakman will join our team from Spetember. She obtained her M.Sc. in Mathematics (cum laude) at the University of Twente, and has a background in Game and Graph theory. "Graphs are in my opinion one of the most elegant structures to model relations between objects", and she will examine how to model chemical reactions with hypergraphs in her PhD. 


13-05-2022: Éverton Fernandes da Cunha will join our team from October. He obtained his M.Sc. in Computational Physics at the Institute of Physics of São Carlos, (IFSC), University of São Paulo, (USP), and has a special interest in Complex Networls. Éverton will formulate the complexity indicators underlying synthetic chemical reaction networks, and use them to translate CRNs into mathematical models.


29-03-2022: Albert Wong joins Wim van Saarloos (former president KNAW) on stage in the Studium Generale discussion on "The future of Dutch science". 


25-03-2022: "History dependence in Chemical Reaction Networks". We recently published our first paper: 'History dependence in a chemical reaction network enables dynamic switching’ in Small. Our work is also highlighted in UT News: 'Rekenen met slimme chemie die kan onthouden'. 



02-03-2022: Open Competition M grant (660 kEUR) awarded to Albert Wong Clara Stegehuis. In this project "Capturing Higher-order Interactions in Chemical Reaction Networks", we combine the design of chemical reaction networks with probability analysis of random graphs to create a joint experimental and theoretical perspective on network complexity. “Can we use chemical reactions to model real-world network processes such as epidemics and cascading failures?” Our work is also highlighted in U-Today


08-12-2021: Interview in UT Featured Scientists highlights Wong's current research.

"Can we compute with molecules?"


19-04-2021: Two US patents have recently been published under the Patent Coorperation Treaty (PCT). The publications on i) storage, and ii) modification of information using mixtures of molecules are registered in the Patentscope database of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).


10-02-2021: Hazal Koyuncu will join our group as a Ph. D. student. She obtained her M.Sc. degree in Chemical Engineering at Prague University of Chemistry and Technology in Czech Republic. Looking forward to see her in April and strengthen our team with her research experience in microfluidics and microscopic techniques.


05-11-2020: Veni grant awarded to Albert Wong. In this research, he proposed to lay the foundation for novel molecular computing strategies to predict dynamics in complex systems. Please see Press Releases from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research, NWO, and University of Twente for a summary of my research proposal.


01-08-2020: Albert Wong is part of The Center for Brain-Inspired Nano Systems (BRAINS). This center comprises PI from various disciplines, ranging from computer science, artificial intelligence to neuroscience, and aims to develop efficient hardware for information processing. 


01-08-2020: Dmitry Kryukov will join our group as a Ph. D. student. He graduated for his M.Sc. degree in Chemistry at the Moscow State University (MSU) in Russia. Looking forward to see him in September!


01-07-2020: Wong's Research Lab is a new group embedded in the Department of Molecules and Materials of the faculty of Science and Technology. 



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