Meet Hilke Schenkel

Hilke Schenkel

For the next four years I will be working on optimising and testing DNA design for our future synthetic minimal cell as a PhD Candidate.

Hello, my name is Hilke Schenkel. For the next four years I will be working on optimising and testing DNA design for our future synthetic minimal cell as a PhD Candidate at the TU Delft with Cees Dekker. In this project I will contribute to EVOLF by designing, assembling and testing long featureless synthetic sequences. This CleanSeqDNA will be an excellent base material for building a minimal synthetic genome.

Using the CleanSeqDNA as a test bed I hope to gain a better understanding of the gene circuit engineering required, to assemble the gene networks necessary for a living minimal cells.

Before my PhD, I have completed my bachelor and master’s degree in Nanobiology at the TU Delft and EMC Rotterdam. During my study I have gravitated towards bioinformatics, molecular genetics and molecular biology. This has culminated in my thesis project at EMC on quantifying transcription decline in aging mice, which I hope to publish in the near future. When I’m not working I like to learn about history and travel to places to emerge myself in the nature, history and culture, all the while making the best photographs possible.