Two CES team members, Joana Sousa and Filipe Santos, travelled from Porto in Portugal to Braunschweig in Germany to visit BIOASSEMBLER’s partner Abcalis GmbH, which specialises in antibody generation and production. 

This visit took place on February 23, 2024, and had a very important goal: interviewing relevant Abcalis researchers to learn more about Abcalis’ work in the scope of BIOASSEMBLER. Results from these interviews will inform the research CES is conducting to understand the chances and risks of multiplexed biosensors for the project’s Work Package 6, and also two arts-based communications materials we are preparing in our Work Package 2 – a Visual Dictionary and a comic book.

Joana and Filipe were hosted by Abcalis’ Science CEO Laila Al-Halabi-Frenzel and PhD student Jan Terbrack, both BIOASSEMBLER’s team members, who graciously agreed to the visit.

The day began with an in-depth interview with Jan Terbrack, followed by a guided tour of the lab, where Joana and Filipe were able to access the environments of experimentation and replication and hear about procedures and steps involved in the production cycle of antibodies.

Over lunchtime and during the tour in the lab Joana and Filipe met other colleagues, including the two BIOASSEMBLER team members Esther Wenzel and Kilian Zilkens. The afternoon was spent with a long and rich interview with Laila Al-Halabi-Frenzel.

Laila and Jan were the most wonderful and welcoming hosts. They were fully available to answer all questions Joana and Filipe had and engage in conversations about laboratory life, the science team, and beyond.

In the end, Joana and Filipe felt immersed in baseline concepts of BIOASSEMBLER technologies, as the inner life of clear liquids became imaginable and even tangible.