Laura Alvarez

Junior Chair (Tenure Track) at the University of Bordeaux.

Contact

office : B-224
Centre de Recherche Paul Pascal  (CNRS)
115 Avenue du Dr Albert Schweitzer, 33600 Pessac, France
Tel (+33) 05 56 84 30 27
eMail : laura.alvarez-frances[AT]u-bordeaux.fr
Website and Blog:  https://www.softbiocoll.com/

RESEARCH INTEREST

Active matter/ Chemical Communication/ Bio-inspired microsystems/ Colloidal particles/
Member of the BIO 2.0 team

PROJECTS AND COLLABORATIONS

  • Design and fabrication of active liposomes toward cell-like active systems
  • Interaction of active and passive colloidal particle with lipid membranes. Active particles under optical tweezers (Prof. Ivo Buttinoni)
  • 2D motion of colloidal rockets.
  • Encapsulation of Active Colloidal particles with microfluidics. (Collab with Prof. Jean Christophe Baret and Prof. Hamid Kellay)
  • Optimization of smart navigation of enzymatic particles through chemical gradients using microfluidics (Collab with Prof. Jean Christophe Baret).
  • Assembly and motion of colloidal lattices (collab with Prof. Hartmut Lowen).
  • Collective behavior of AC actuated Janus particles (Collab with Prof. Ignacio Pagonabarraga, Dr. Demian Levis and Prof. Lucio Isa)
  • Fundamental study of materials impact on dynamics of active colloids actuated with AC electric fields (Prof. Alexander Baron)
  • Synthesis and active motion of topological assymetric spheres (Collab with Dr. Minghan Hu)

CURRICULUM

Professional carrier

Since 2022 : Tenure Track at the University of Bordeaux, researcher at CRPP (CNRS)
2020-2021 : SNSF (Spark grant) postdoctoral fellow at ETH Zurich (group of Prof. Lucio Isa)
2017-2021 : Postdoctoral researcher at ETH Zurich (group of Prof. Lucio Isa)
2013-2016: PhD at University of Bordeaux and KU Leuven (Supervised by Prof. M. P. Lettinga and Dr. Eric Grelet) 

Grants and awards

2023 : ANR JCJ – Project MYMESYS (U. Bordeaux) .
2023 : France-Berkeley Fund – (Uni. Berkeley) .
2022 : Junior Chair Pre-recruitement (U. Bordeaux) .
2020 : Spark postoctoral grant, Swiss National Foundation (SNSF).
2013 : IdEx PhD programm for international students.

       PUBLICATIONS

van Kesteren, S., Alvarez, L Arrese-Igor, S., Alegría, A., Isa, L*, Self-propelling colloidal finite state machines. PNAS, 120, e2213481120 (2023)
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2213481120

Zhao, K.*, Hu, M., van Baalen,  C., Alvarez, L, and Isa, L.*, Sorting of heterogeneous colloids by AC-dielectrophoretic forces in a microfluidic chip with asymmetric orifices. Journal of Colloid and Interface Science, 634, 921 (2023) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0021979722022561

Buttinoni, I*., Caprini, L., Alvarez, L., Schwarzendahl, F. J., Löwen, H*., Active Colloids in Harmonic Optical Potentials. Euro Phys, Lett. ,140, 27001 (2022) https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1209/0295-5075/ac9c28

Xie, K., Gorin, B., Cerbus, R. T., Alvarez, L, Rampnoux, J. M, and Kellay, H. Activity induced rigidity of liquid droplets. Physical Review Letters, 129, 138001, (2022)
https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.129.138001

Minghan, H., Reichholf, N., Xia, Y., Alvarez, L., Cao, X., Ma, S., deMello, A.J., Isa, L., Multi-compartment supracapsules made from nano-containers towards programmable release. Mater. Horiz., 9, 1641 (2022)
https://doi.org/10.1039/D2MH00135G

Alvarez, L.*, M. A. Fernandez-Rodriguez, A Alegria, S. Arrese-Igor, K. Zhao, M. Kröger and L. Isa*, Reconfigurable Artificial Microswimmers with Internal Feedback.
Nature Communications, 12,  4762 (2021).
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-25108-2

M. A. Fernandez-Rodriguez, Alvarez, L.*, Microgels and nanogels at interfaces and emulsions: identifying opportunities from a bibliometric analysis. Frontiers, 9, 611 (2021).
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphy.2021.754684/full

M.P. Lettinga, Alvarez, L., O. Korculanin, E. Grelet. When bigger is faster: A Self-Van Hove analysis on how non-commensurability in particle size favors self-diffusion in smectic phases. Journal of Chemical Physics, 154, 204901 (2021) Editor’s choice.
https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/5.0049093

R. Pioli, M. A. Fernandez-Rodriguez, F. Grillo, Alvarez, L., R. Stocker, L. Isa, E. Secchi*. Sequential capillarity-assisted particle assembly in a microfluidic channel.
In press, Lab on a Chip, 21, 888 (2021).
https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlepdf/2021/lc/d0lc00962h

M. A Fernandez-Rodriguez, F. Grillo*, Alvarez, L., M. Rathleft, I. Buttinoni, G. Volpe, L. Isa*. Feedback-controlled active Brownian colloids with space-dependent rotational dynamics. Nature Communications, 11, 4223 (2020). 
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17864-4

A. R. Sprenger, M. A.l Fernandez-Rodriguez, Alvarez, L., L. Isa*, R. Wittkowski* and Hartmut Löwen. Active Brownian Motion with  Orientation-Dependent Motility: Theory and Experiments, Langmuir, 36, 25 (2020)
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.langmuir.9b03617

Alvarez, L., M.P. Lettinga, and E. Grelet*. Fast Diffusion of Long Guest Rods in a Lamellar Phase of Short Host Particles. Phys. Rev. Lett., 118, 178002 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.118.178002