Press release: From cells to smart gels: momentum in motion

No. 32 - 31.03.2026

Biophysicist at Göttingen University awarded Volkswagen Foundation Momentum funding

Professor Timo Betz at Göttingen University’s Faculty of Physics has been awarded Momentum funding by the Volkswagen Foundation for his project “From Cells to Smart Gels: Momentum in Motion”. The award is worth just under 950,000 Euros over 4 years with a possible extension of 2 years. It will enable the translation of biological processes to synthetic materials that mimic key behaviours of living cells. At last, researchers will be able to make use of our current understanding of life to copy key features, like self-organization and physical adaptation, which have developed through evolution over billions of years. The hope is to generate smart materials that can react and adapt to external stimuli just like living entities.

Cells are capable of withstanding and processing various mechanical forces, and in our quest to understand these interactions scientists typically challenge cells by controlled force and stress application, while studying their response. They then reduce the complexity by removing more and more parts of the system to get a detailed, in-depth understanding of the relevant parts. This allows the development of working models to explain how cells are able to perform their many functions, like self-healing upon damage, generating opposing forces when pushed or simply liquifying when pressed too hard. Many of these processes are important for crucial processes like immune response or the migration of metastatic cancer cells throughout our body. The research is now at a point where further simplifying real living systems is reaching its limits, as it destroys the system. Betz will turn over the approach and use knowledge obtained from studying living cells to recreate part of the cell’s interior in a synthetic way. Jelly-like substances, such as soft colloids and polymers, will get mechanically driven by physical electromagnetic fields as an energy source and then be combined to form a smart gel that mimics the cell’s cytoplasm – the very material that most of the cell is made from.

Betz explains: “In this project, we take inspiration from living systems to create entirely new states of matter. Just as early aviation was inspired by observing birds, we use our understanding of living matter to design materials that can heal themselves, respond to their environment, and even change their physical properties. Our long-term vision is a truly adaptive material – one that can switch function on demand, transforming from one object into another, as if it were a spoon today, then a plate tomorrow, or a mug for your coffee.”

Betz completed a PhD in 2007 in the Soft Matter Physics Division in Leipzig before taking up a postdoctoral position at the Institute Curie in Paris. After obtaining a tenure track professorship in Münster in 2016, he moved to the University of Göttingen in 2020 where he obtained a permanent position. His many awards include ERC Consolidator and Proof of Concept grants. His research focuses on deciphering the fundamental physical processes within living cells leading to better health interventions as well as discovering new physical processes within the cell. This includes developing a 3D model to understand the mechanisms of rapid cell division in cancer cells, creating optical tweezers to understand the mechanical properties of a living cell, and a project to build a Lego microscope to inspire the next generation of scientists.

The aim of the Volkswagen Foundation’s Momentum funding is to work as an impetus to keep research moving and developing after it has started. It is for academics in their first tenured professorship to open up opportunities to strategically advance their research.

Contact:

Professor Timo Betz

University of Göttingen

Faculty of Physics – Biophysics Institute

Friedrich-Hund-Platz 1, 37077 Göttingen, Germany

Tel: +49 (0) 551 39 26921

Email: timo.betz@phys.uni-goettingen.de