iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Sam Wilken @samwilken.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

A fortuitous convergence of my PhD work on jamming and my postdoc research on biomolecular phase separation. Never hesitate to step into a new field—you always carry the concepts and intuition from your past with you.

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Sam Wilken @samwilken.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

Excited to see this published! We show that multiple distinct liquid phases can be engineered within a single sample—and that, when densely packed, they behave collectively as a jammed multicomponent material that undergoes a coalescence-driven unjamming phase transition.

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Sam Wilken @samwilken.bsky.social · 21/11/2025

This paper holds personal significance for me, as it was my first foray into biomolecular phase separation and DNA self-assembly. I am continuing work on reaction-condensation mechanisms in my new independent group at @unimainz.bsky.social. Stay tuned for more!

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Sam Wilken @samwilken.bsky.social · 21/11/2025

Such feedback loops could underlie how cells control condensates, or how synthetic systems might be built to compute or regulate via phase transitions.

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Sam Wilken @samwilken.bsky.social · 21/11/2025

This work shows how biochemistry (transcription) and materials (phase separation) are interconnected: - The reaction controls the material state (condensed liquid droplets). - The material state controls the reaction.

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Sam Wilken @samwilken.bsky.social · 21/11/2025

We then engineered negative feedback: the formation of droplets activates condensation, but the droplets repress transcription by sequestering parts of the transcription machinery (template DNA vs RNAP). A mesoscale “activator/repressor” network.

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Sam Wilken @samwilken.bsky.social · 21/11/2025

We found that droplet formation through this transcription-driven route shows: 1) a substantial delay before droplets appear. 2) a non-linear response of droplet volume to RNA production kinetics.

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Sam Wilken @samwilken.bsky.social · 21/11/2025

We built a minimal model system: DNA nanostars (self-assembling particles) that only form droplets when a single-stranded RNA linker is present. In vitro transcription reaction (using T7 RNAP) that produces RNA linkers in situ.

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Sam Wilken @samwilken.bsky.social · 21/11/2025

It has been shown that transcribed genes participate in liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS) and that LLPS can condense around regions of the genome, regulating transcription. We wanted to ask: What physical mechanisms are responsible for transcription-condensation coupling?

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Sam Wilken @samwilken.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

Only two days left to apply for positions in my new group in Mainz! The Nature Jobs posting will close on July 11th, but you can still find application details at: sites.google.com/view/swilken/we-are-hiring

sites.google.com

Sam Wilken - We are hiring!

We are hiring!

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Sam Wilken @samwilken.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

Lots to learn about DNA (and otherwise) in Mainz, looking forward to your visit!

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