Dr Claudia Bonfio
- Associate Professor
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About
Claudia completed her PhD in Biomolecular Sciences at the University of Trento (IT), working on the origin and catalytic activity of ancient proteins. Later, as a Marie Sklodowska Curie Fellow and 1851 Research Fellow, she moved to Cambridge, where she looked into the chemical origin of cell membrane signalling. In 2021, she started her independent research career at ISIS in Strasbourg before moving back to the University of Cambridge in 2024 as a University Associate Professor following the award of an ERC Starting Grant and a UKRI Future Leader Fellowship. Her group is interested in designing and developing functional primitive cells capable of Darwinian evolution.
Research InterestsHow does chemistry become biology? Our lab investigates this question by exploring how primitive compartments, both membrane-bound and membraneless, could have emerged under prebiotic conditions and supported early biochemical function.
We focus on the spontaneous diversification of lipids in the absence of enzymes, showing how prebiotic chemistries can generate complex membrane compositions with dynamic physical properties. These membranes can exhibit key behaviours such as fusion, division, and selective permeability, and may have played a critical role in early RNA replication and molecular organisation.
In parallel, we study peptide/oligonucleotide coacervates as alternative compartmentalisation strategies. These phase-separated droplets can stabilise and activate nucleic acids, offering a complementary model for primitive biochemical environments.
Together, these studies suggest that early cellular life may have emerged through a combination of interacting, enzyme-free compartments with distinct chemical origins. By integrating prebiotic chemistry, membrane biophysics, and systems approaches, we aim to reconstruct pathways from disordered molecular mixtures to functionally organised protocells.