Prof. Dr. Job Boekhoven (CV.pdf)
Education
2002 – 2008 University of Groningen, Netherlands
B.Sc. in Chemistry obtained in 2007
M.Sc. in Chemistry obtained in 2008
2007 University of Cambridge, UK
‘Photoresponsive Polymer Surfaces’, in the group of Prof. W. T. S. Huck
Academic Employment
My current position
Since 2022 – Associate Professor
at the Bioscience Department, School of Natural Science
Technical University of Munich
2016-2021 Rudolf Mössbauer Professor
Chemistry Department and the Institute for Advanced Study
Technical University of Munich
2012 – 2015 Rubicon Postdoctoral Fellow
Institute for BioNanotechnology in Medicine
working with Prof. Samuel I. Stupp.
Northwestern University, USA
2008 – 2012 Ph.D. in Chemistry in the group of Prof. Jan van Esch. Dissertation title: “Multicomponent and Dissipative Self-assembly Approaches towards Functional Materials”.
Delft University of Technology, Netherlands
I was born in ’84 to two expat parents in Brunei. I grew up in the Scottish Highlands and the Dutch Lowlands. In the Netherlands, I started my B.Sc. to Ph.D trajectory. After a postdoctoral stay in the US Midwest, TUM welcomed me to start my research group, where I am now an associate professor.
With my group, I am developing tools to regulate the self-assembly of molecules, as biology does. We are best known for our work on chemically fueled reaction cycles that control the ability of molecules to assemble or phase separate. The resulting assemblies or phase-separated droplets exhibit exciting new properties, including intrinsic self-healing and controllable lifetimes. Moreover, the chemically fueled assemblies exhibit features we usually associate with living cells, such as the ability to emerge, decay, or even self-divide.
Personal Grants and Awards
2025 – MASC Supramolecular Chemistry Award
2023 – ERC Consolidator grant
2021 – VCI – Dozentenpreis
2021 – Max Planck Fellow in the school “Matter to Life.”
2020 – Board member on the International Grad. School Munich
2020 – Speaker of the TUM Innovation Networks: RISE
2020 – Speaker of a Volkswagenstiftung “Life?” consortium
2019 – ERC Starting grant
2019 – PI in the Origins cluster of Excellence
2018 – Max Planck Fellow in the school “Matter to Life.”
2018 – PI in SFB 235
2017 – JSP fellow
2017 – Thieme Chemistry Journal Award
2017 – PI in SFB 863
2016 – VCI – Young investigator grant
2016 – PI in graduate school ATUMS
2016 – Rudolf Mössbauer tenure track Professorship
2015 – Rising Star Award, SQ Institute, Northwestern University
2013 – Rubicon Postdoctoral fellowship, Dutch Organisation for Scientific Research
2012 – Cum laude defense of PhD degree
Professional Board Memberships
– Board member on the International Grad. School Munich
– Editorial Board Member – CellPress Blue
– Editorial Board Member – ChemSystemsChem
List of selected papers
C. Donau, F. Späth, M. Sosson, B.. Kriebisch, F. Schnitter, M. Tena-Solsona, H.-S. Kang, E. Salibi, M. Sattler, H. Mutschler, J. Boekhoven, Nature Commun. 2020, 11 (1), 5167.
We found the first example of coacervate-based droplets based on polymers that are “active”, i.e., they are regulated through energy-consuming chemical reactions.
• M. Tena-Solsona, B. Rieß, C. Wanzke, A. Bausch, J. Boekhoven, Nature Commun. 2018, 9, 2044.
My team found the first synthetic active droplets based on prebiotic relevant chemistry.
• M. Tena-Solsona,* B. Rieß,* R. Grötsch, F. Löhrer, C. Wanzke, B. Käsdorf, A. Bausch, P. Mueller-Buschbaum, O. Lieleg, J. Boekhoven, Nature Commun. 2017, 8, 15895.
We describe a simple, yet versatile chemical reaction cycle based on dicarboxylate-anhydride chemistry that induces dissipative self-assembly.