Giacomo

@uniroma1.it

Fixed-term Assistant Professor (RTDA), Department of Physics
Sapienza University of Rome

Giacomo


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https://researchid.co/giacomo.frangipane

EDUCATION

• 23/02/2018 – PhD in Physics (cum laude) – Sapienza University of Rome
Thesis: Light controlled motility of Escherichia coli. Characterization and applications Supervisor: Prof. R. Di Leonardo
• 17/ 07/2014 – MSc in Physics (110/110) – Sapienza University of Rome Thesis: Tumor induced angiogenesis: a statistical mechanics approach Advisors: Prof. E. Marinari, Dr B. Cerruti
• 03/11/2011 – BSc in Physics (110/110 cum laude) – Sapienza University of Rome Selected for the University excellence course
Topic: Statistical potentials applied to biological macromolecules
Thesis advisor: Prof. A. Tramontano

RESEARCH, TEACHING, or OTHER INTERESTS

Multidisciplinary, Biophysics, Microbiology
16

Scopus Publications

859

Scholar Citations

12

Scholar h-index

13

Scholar i10-index

Scopus Publications

  • An optically driven microstructure for torque measurement in rotary molecular motors
    Giacomo Donini, Silvio Bianchi, Nicola Pellicciotta, Giacomo Frangipane, Maria Cristina Cannarsa, Ojus Satish Bagal, Roberto Di Leonardo
    Microsystems and Nanoengineering, 2026
    ‘Light-mills’ are optically driven microstructures that can exchange orbital angular momentum with light and thus rotate around a central axis with a controlled applied torque. Although many studies have explored the employment of light momentum for torque generation, only a few convincing applications in cellular and molecular biology have been demonstrated. Here, we design a 3D chiral structure that can be selectively coupled to a target nanometric flagellar motor in a live E. coli cell, functioning as an external, tunable torque clamp. We optimize our 3D microstructures for torque conversion efficiency and mechanical stability, and propose a calibration protocol that enables absolute quantification of the torque generated by the flagellar motor during rotation in both its natural and reverse directions. Our results demonstrate that microfabricated light-mills expand the optical toolbox for biomechanical study of individual rotary motors by enabling controlled torque application and measurement at the nanoscale.
  • Dynamic velocity response of E. coli powered by proteorhodopsin
    Silvio Bianchi, Giacomo Donini, Maria Cristina Cannarsa, Giacomo Frangipane, Roberto Di Leonardo
    Biophysical Reports, 2026
    Escherichia coli swimming motility is powered by the flagellar motor, a rotary nanomachine driven by inward proton flux through its torque-generating stators. How these proton currents arise from proton motive force is often described using a simple circuit model, in which the membrane acts as a capacitor discharging through the flagellar motors and other resistive proton channels. By monitoring the swimming activity of E. coli expressing a light-driven outward proton pump, we probe the dynamical response of the system under tunable optical driving and test the limits of simplified circuit-based description. Our results show that the flagellar motors are not the main sink for proton motive force discharge. Instead, other membrane channels carry a larger proton current and exhibit a nonlinear resistive behavior. Using the same experimental approach, we directly quantify proteorhodopsin pumping activity as a function of illumination wavelength and compare it with previously reported absorption spectra.
  • The 2025 motile active matter roadmap
    Gerhard Gompper, Howard A Stone, Christina Kurzthaler, David Saintillan, Fernado Peruani, Dmitry A Fedosov, Thorsten Auth, Cecile Cottin-Bizonne, Christophe Ybert, Eric Clément, Thierry Darnige, Anke Lindner, Raymond E Goldstein, Benno Liebchen, Jack Binysh, Anton Souslov, Lucio Isa, Roberto di Leonardo, Giacomo Frangipane, Hongri Gu, Bradley J Nelson, Fridtjof Brauns, M Cristina Marchetti, Frank Cichos, Veit-Lorenz Heuthe, Clemens Bechinger, Amos Korman, Ofer Feinerman, Andrea Cavagna, Irene Giardina, Hannah Jeckel, Knut Drescher
    Journal of Physics Condensed Matter, 2025
    Activity and autonomous motion are fundamental aspects of many living and engineering systems. Here, the scale of biological agents covers a wide range, from nanomotors, cytoskeleton, and cells, to insects, fish, birds, and people. Inspired by biological active systems, various types of autonomous synthetic nano- and micromachines have been designed, which provide the basis for multifunctional, highly responsive, intelligent active materials. A major challenge for understanding and designing active matter is their inherent non-equilibrium nature due to persistent energy consumption, which invalidates equilibrium concepts such as free energy, detailed balance, and time-reversal symmetry. Furthermore, interactions in ensembles of active agents are often non-additive and non-reciprocal. An important aspect of biological agents is their ability to sense the environment, process this information, and adjust their motion accordingly. It is an important goal for the engineering of micro-robotic systems to achieve similar functionality. Many fundamental properties of motile active matter are by now reasonably well understood and under control. Thus, the ground is now prepared for the study of physical aspects and mechanisms of motion in complex environments, the behavior of systems with new physical features like chirality, the development of novel micromachines and microbots, the emergent collective behavior and swarming of intelligent self-propelled particles, and particular features of microbial systems. The vast complexity of phenomena and mechanisms involved in the self-organization and dynamics of motile active matter poses major challenges, which can only be addressed by a truly interdisciplinary effort involving scientists from biology, chemistry, ecology, engineering, mathematics, and physics. The 2025 motile active matter roadmap of Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter reviews the current state of the art of the field and provides guidance for further progress in this fascinating research area.
  • Multiple temperatures and melting of a colloidal active crystal
    Helena Massana-Cid, Claudio Maggi, Nicoletta Gnan, Giacomo Frangipane, Roberto Di Leonardo
    Nature Communications, 2024
    Thermal fluctuations constantly excite all relaxation modes in an equilibrium crystal. As the temperature rises, these fluctuations promote the formation of defects and eventually melting. In active solids, the self-propulsion of “atomic” units provides an additional source of non-equilibrium fluctuations whose effect on the melting scenario is still largely unexplored. Here we show that when a colloidal crystal is activated by a bath of swimming bacteria, solvent temperature and active temperature cooperate to define dynamic and thermodynamic properties. Our system consists of repulsive paramagnetic particles confined in two dimensions and immersed in a bath of light-driven E. coli. The relative balance between fluctuations and interactions can be adjusted in two ways: by changing the strength of the magnetic field and by tuning activity with light. When the persistence time of active fluctuations is short, a single effective temperature controls both the amplitudes of relaxation modes and the melting transition. For more persistent active noise, energy equipartition is broken and multiple temperatures emerge, whereas melting occurs before the Lindemann parameter reaches its equilibrium critical value. We show that this phenomenology is fully confirmed by numerical simulations and framed within a minimal model of a single active particle in a periodic potential.
  • Colloidal transport by light induced gradients of active pressure
    Nicola Pellicciotta, Matteo Paoluzzi, Dario Buonomo, Giacomo Frangipane, Luca Angelani, Roberto Di Leonardo
    Nature Communications, 2023
    Active fluids, like all other fluids, exert mechanical pressure on confining walls. Unlike equilibrium, this pressure is generally not a function of the fluid state in the bulk and displays some peculiar properties. For example, when activity is not uniform, fluid regions with different activity may exert different pressures on the container walls but they can coexist side by side in mechanical equilibrium. Here we show that by spatially modulating bacterial motility with light, we can generate active pressure gradients capable of transporting passive probe particles in controlled directions. Although bacteria swim faster in the brighter side, we find that bacteria in the dark side apply a stronger pressure resulting in a net drift motion that points away from the low activity region. Using a combination of experiments and numerical simulations, we show that this drift originates mainly from an interaction pressure term that builds up due to the compression exerted by a layer of polarized cells surrounding the slow region. In addition to providing new insights into the generalization of pressure for interacting systems with non-uniform activity, our results demonstrate the possibility of exploiting active pressure for the controlled transport of microscopic objects.
  • Light Controlled Biohybrid Microbots
    Nicola Pellicciotta, Ojus Satish Bagal, Viridiana Carmona Sosa, Giacomo Frangipane, Gaszton Vizsnyiczai, Roberto Di Leonardo
    Advanced Functional Materials, 2023
    Biohybrid microbots integrate biological actuators and sensors into synthetic chassis with the aim of providing the building blocks of next‐generation micro‐robotics. One of the main challenges is the development of self‐assembled systems with consistent behavior and such that they can be controlled independently to perform complex tasks. Herein, it is shown that, using light‐driven bacteria as propellers, 3D printed microbots can be steered by unbalancing light intensity over different microbot parts. An optimal feedback loop is designed in which a central computer projects onto each microbot a tailor‐made light pattern, calculated from its position and orientation. In this way, multiple microbots can be independently guided through a series of spatially distributed checkpoints. By exploiting a natural light‐driven proton pump, these bio‐hybrid microbots are able to extract mechanical energy from light with such high efficiency that, in principle, hundreds of these systems can be controlled simultaneously with a total optical power of just a few milliwatts.
  • Light-Driven Flagella Elucidate the Role of Hook and Cell Body Kinematics in Bundle Formation
    S. Bianchi, F. Saglimbeni, G. Frangipane, M. C. Cannarsa, R. Di Leonardo
    Prx Life, 2023
    This work investigates the dynamics of flagella in light-driven bacteria, emphasizing the importance of the hook's curvature and illustrating how wobbling is vital in forming a stable flagellar bundle.
  • Rectification and confinement of photokinetic bacteria in an optical feedback loop
    Helena Massana-Cid, Claudio Maggi, Giacomo Frangipane, Roberto Di Leonardo
    Nature Communications, 2022
    Active particles can self-propel by exploiting locally available energy resources. When powered by light, these resources can be distributed with high resolution allowing spatio-temporal modulation of motility. Here we show that the random walks of light-driven bacteria are rectified when they swim in a structured light field that is obtained by a simple geometric transformation of a previous system snapshot. The obtained currents achieve an optimal value that we establish by general theoretical arguments. This optical feedback is used to gather and confine bacteria in high-density and high-activity regions that can be dynamically relocated and reconfigured. Moving away from the boundaries of these optically confined states, the density decays to zero in a few tens of micrometers, exhibiting steep exponential tails that suppress cell escape and ensure long-term stability. Our method is general and scalable, providing a versatile tool to produce localized and tunable active baths for microengineering applications and systematic studies of non-equilibrium phenomena in active systems.
  • Flagellar elasticity and the multiple swimming modes of interfacial bacteria
    S. Bianchi, F. Saglimbeni, G. Frangipane, R. Di Leonardo
    Physical Review Research, 2022
    In peritrichous bacteria, such as E. coli, flagella join into a compact bundle that is usually assumed to be rigidly connected to the cell body allowing only counter-rotations around a common axis. This simple microswimmer model has been very successful in providing quantitative predictions on swimming behavior in bulk fluids and in the proximity of different kinds of interfaces and confinement. Here, we show that, when bacteria colonize a water-air interface, capillary forces can strongly deform the body-bundle complex, giving rise to unusual and heterogeneous swimming modes. We find that all trajectories can be classified into four main modes, with cells tracing either clockwise or counterclockwise circles while the cell body can be locked to the swimming direction or spin freely. All the observed phenomenology can be reproduced by simply allowing elastic bending of the bundle axis, where stiffness is the main factor in selecting the swimming mode. Our results allow us to experimentally test flexible models of microswimmers in highly perturbed contexts and provide physical insights into the early stages of bacterial pellicles.
  • A virtual reality interface for the immersive manipulation of live microscopic systems
    Stefano Ferretti, Silvio Bianchi, Giacomo Frangipane, Roberto Di Leonardo
    Scientific Reports, 2021
    For more than three centuries we have been watching and studying microscopic phenomena behind a microscope. We discovered that cells live in a physical environment whose predominant factors are no longer those of our scale and for which we lack a direct experience and consequently a deep intuition. Here we demonstrate a new instrument which, by integrating holographic and virtual reality technologies, allows the user to be completely immersed in a dynamic virtual world which is a simultaneous replica of a real system under the microscope. We use holographic microscopy for fast 3D imaging and real-time rendering on a virtual reality headset. At the same time, hand tracking data is used to dynamically generate holographic optical traps that can be used as virtual projections of the user hands to interactively grab and manipulate ensembles of microparticles or living motile cells.
  • A transition to stable one-dimensional swimming enhances E. coli motility through narrow channels
    Gaszton Vizsnyiczai, Giacomo Frangipane, Silvio Bianchi, Filippo Saglimbeni, Dario Dell’Arciprete, Roberto Di Leonardo
    Nature Communications, 2020
  • Invariance properties of bacterial random walks in complex structures
    Giacomo Frangipane, Gaszton Vizsnyiczai, Claudio Maggi, Romolo Savo, Alfredo Sciortino, Sylvain Gigan, Roberto Di Leonardo
    Nature Communications, 2019
  • 3D dynamics of bacteria wall entrapment at a water-air interface
    Silvio Bianchi, Filippo Saglimbeni, Giacomo Frangipane, Dario Dell'Arciprete, Roberto Di Leonardo
    Soft Matter, 2019
  • Dynamic density shaping of photokinetic E. Coli
    Giacomo Frangipane, Dario Dell'Arciprete, Serena Petracchini, Claudio Maggi, Filippo Saglimbeni, Silvio Bianchi, Gaszton Vizsnyiczai, Maria Lina Bernardini, Roberto Di Leonardo
    Elife, 2018
  • Currents and flux-inversion in photokinetic active particles
    Claudio Maggi, Luca Angelani, Giacomo Frangipane, Roberto Di Leonardo
    Soft Matter, 2018
  • Light controlled 3D micromotors powered by bacteria
    Gaszton Vizsnyiczai, Giacomo Frangipane, Claudio Maggi, Filippo Saglimbeni, Silvio Bianchi, Roberto Di Leonardo
    Nature Communications, 2017

RECENT SCHOLAR PUBLICATIONS

  • Dynamic velocity response of E. coli powered by proteorhodopsin
    S Bianchi, G Donini, MC Cannarsa, G Frangipane, R Di Leonardo
    Biophysical Reports 6 (2) , 2026
    2026
  • An optically driven microstructure for torque measurement in rotary molecular motors
    G Donini, S Bianchi, N Pellicciotta, G Frangipane, MC Cannarsa, ...
    Microsystems & Nanoengineering 12 (1), 48 , 2026
    2026
    Citations: 1
  • An enhanced phage-derived lytic platform for programmable autolysis in E. coli
    V Siciliano, L Cassella, A Petrosino, F Liguori, MC Cannarsa, ...
    2026
  • The 2025 motile active matter roadmap
    G Gompper, HA Stone, C Kurzthaler, D Saintillan, F Peruani, DA Fedosov, ...
    Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter 37 (14), 143501 , 2025
    2025
    Citations: 48
  • Light-driven synchronization of optogenetic clocks
    MC Cannarsa, F Liguori, N Pellicciotta, G Frangipane, R Di Leonardo
    Elife 13, RP97754 , 2024
    2024
    Citations: 12
  • Multiple temperatures and melting of a colloidal active crystal
    H Massana-Cid, C Maggi, N Gnan, G Frangipane, R Di Leonardo
    Nature Communications 15 (1), 6574 , 2024
    2024
    Citations: 27
  • Biohybrid microbots driven by light
    R Di Leonardo, N Pellicciotta, OS Bagal, VC Sosa, G Frangipane, ...
    Optical Trapping and Optical Micromanipulation XX, PC126490B , 2023
    2023
    Citations: 1
  • Light Controlled Biohybrid Microbots:(Adv. Funct. Mater. 39/2023)
    N Pellicciotta, OS Bagal, VC Sosa, G Frangipane, G Vizsnyiczai, ...
    Advanced Functional Materials 33 (39), 2370230 , 2023
    2023
  • Light-driven flagella elucidate the role of hook and cell body kinematics in bundle formation
    S Bianchi, F Saglimbeni, G Frangipane, MC Cannarsa, R Di Leonardo
    PRX Life 1 (1), 013016 , 2023
    2023
    Citations: 6
  • Light controlled biohybrid microbots
    N Pellicciotta, OS Bagal, VC Sosa, G Frangipane, G Vizsnyiczai, ...
    Advanced Functional Materials 33 (39), 2214801 , 2023
    2023
    Citations: 53
  • Colloidal transport by light induced gradients of active pressure
    N Pellicciotta, M Paoluzzi, D Buonomo, G Frangipane, L Angelani, ...
    Nature Communications 14 (1), 4191 , 2023
    2023
    Citations: 20
  • Optical Synchronization of Genetic Oscillators
    F Liguori, MC Cannarsa, G Frangipane, N Pellicciotta, R Di Leonardo
    3rd Optogenetic Application and Technology Conference , 2022
    2022
  • Rectification and confinement of photokinetic bacteria in an optical feedback loop
    H Massana-Cid, C Maggi, G Frangipane, R Di Leonardo
    Nature Communications 13 (1), 2740 , 2022
    2022
    Citations: 38
  • Flagellar elasticity and the multiple swimming modes of interfacial bacteria
    S Bianchi, F Saglimbeni, G Frangipane, R Di Leonardo
    Physical Review Research 4 (2), L022044 , 2022
    2022
    Citations: 2
  • Optical confinement and rectification of photokinetic bacteria by feedback controlled light patterns
    H Massana-Cid, G Frangipane, C Maggi, R Di Leonardo
    APS March Meeting Abstracts 2022, W11. 005 , 2022
    2022
  • A virtual reality interface for the immersive manipulation of live microscopic systems
    S Ferretti, S Bianchi, G Frangipane, R Di Leonardo
    Scientific Reports 11 (1), 7610 , 2021
    2021
    Citations: 19
  • Digital holography for the immersive live exploration and manipulation of 3D micro-systems
    S Ferretti, S Bianchi, G Frangipane, R Di Leonardo
    Optical Trapping and Optical Micromanipulation XVII 11463, 114630F , 2020
    2020
  • A transition to stable one-dimensional swimming enhances E. coli motility through narrow channels
    G Vizsnyiczai, G Frangipane, S Bianchi, F Saglimbeni, D Dell’Arciprete, ...
    Nature communications 11 (1), 2340 , 2020
    2020
    Citations: 60
  • Invariance properties of bacterial random walks in complex structures
    G Frangipane, G Vizsnyiczai, C Maggi, R Savo, A Sciortino, S Gigan, ...
    Nature communications 10 (1), 2442 , 2019
    2019
    Citations: 51
  • 3D dynamics of bacteria wall entrapment at a water–air interface
    S Bianchi, F Saglimbeni, G Frangipane, D Dell'Arciprete, R Di Leonardo
    Soft matter 15 (16), 3397-3406 , 2019
    2019
    Citations: 60

MOST CITED SCHOLAR PUBLICATIONS

  • Light controlled 3D micromotors powered by bacteria
    G Vizsnyiczai, G Frangipane, C Maggi, F Saglimbeni, S Bianchi, ...
    Nature communications 8 (1), 15974 , 2017
    2017
    Citations: 251
  • Dynamic density shaping of photokinetic E. coli
    G Frangipane, D Dell'Arciprete, S Petracchini, C Maggi, F Saglimbeni, ...
    Elife 7, e36608 , 2018
    2018
    Citations: 191
  • A transition to stable one-dimensional swimming enhances E. coli motility through narrow channels
    G Vizsnyiczai, G Frangipane, S Bianchi, F Saglimbeni, D Dell’Arciprete, ...
    Nature communications 11 (1), 2340 , 2020
    2020
    Citations: 60
  • 3D dynamics of bacteria wall entrapment at a water–air interface
    S Bianchi, F Saglimbeni, G Frangipane, D Dell'Arciprete, R Di Leonardo
    Soft matter 15 (16), 3397-3406 , 2019
    2019
    Citations: 60
  • Light controlled biohybrid microbots
    N Pellicciotta, OS Bagal, VC Sosa, G Frangipane, G Vizsnyiczai, ...
    Advanced Functional Materials 33 (39), 2214801 , 2023
    2023
    Citations: 53
  • Invariance properties of bacterial random walks in complex structures
    G Frangipane, G Vizsnyiczai, C Maggi, R Savo, A Sciortino, S Gigan, ...
    Nature communications 10 (1), 2442 , 2019
    2019
    Citations: 51
  • The 2025 motile active matter roadmap
    G Gompper, HA Stone, C Kurzthaler, D Saintillan, F Peruani, DA Fedosov, ...
    Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter 37 (14), 143501 , 2025
    2025
    Citations: 48
  • Rectification and confinement of photokinetic bacteria in an optical feedback loop
    H Massana-Cid, C Maggi, G Frangipane, R Di Leonardo
    Nature Communications 13 (1), 2740 , 2022
    2022
    Citations: 38
  • Multiple temperatures and melting of a colloidal active crystal
    H Massana-Cid, C Maggi, N Gnan, G Frangipane, R Di Leonardo
    Nature Communications 15 (1), 6574 , 2024
    2024
    Citations: 27
  • Colloidal transport by light induced gradients of active pressure
    N Pellicciotta, M Paoluzzi, D Buonomo, G Frangipane, L Angelani, ...
    Nature Communications 14 (1), 4191 , 2023
    2023
    Citations: 20
  • A virtual reality interface for the immersive manipulation of live microscopic systems
    S Ferretti, S Bianchi, G Frangipane, R Di Leonardo
    Scientific Reports 11 (1), 7610 , 2021
    2021
    Citations: 19
  • Currents and flux-inversion in photokinetic active particles
    C Maggi, L Angelani, G Frangipane, R Di Leonardo
    Soft Matter 14 (24), 4958-4962 , 2018
    2018
    Citations: 18
  • Light-driven synchronization of optogenetic clocks
    MC Cannarsa, F Liguori, N Pellicciotta, G Frangipane, R Di Leonardo
    Elife 13, RP97754 , 2024
    2024
    Citations: 12
  • Light-driven flagella elucidate the role of hook and cell body kinematics in bundle formation
    S Bianchi, F Saglimbeni, G Frangipane, MC Cannarsa, R Di Leonardo
    PRX Life 1 (1), 013016 , 2023
    2023
    Citations: 6
  • Flagellar elasticity and the multiple swimming modes of interfacial bacteria
    S Bianchi, F Saglimbeni, G Frangipane, R Di Leonardo
    Physical Review Research 4 (2), L022044 , 2022
    2022
    Citations: 2
  • An optically driven microstructure for torque measurement in rotary molecular motors
    G Donini, S Bianchi, N Pellicciotta, G Frangipane, MC Cannarsa, ...
    Microsystems & Nanoengineering 12 (1), 48 , 2026
    2026
    Citations: 1
  • Biohybrid microbots driven by light
    R Di Leonardo, N Pellicciotta, OS Bagal, VC Sosa, G Frangipane, ...
    Optical Trapping and Optical Micromanipulation XX, PC126490B , 2023
    2023
    Citations: 1
  • Dynamic density shaping of light driven bacteria
    G Frangipane, D Dell'Arciprete, S Petracchini, C Maggi, F Saglimbeni, ...
    arXiv preprint arXiv:1802.01156 , 2018
    2018
    Citations: 1
  • Dynamic velocity response of E. coli powered by proteorhodopsin
    S Bianchi, G Donini, MC Cannarsa, G Frangipane, R Di Leonardo
    Biophysical Reports 6 (2) , 2026
    2026
  • An enhanced phage-derived lytic platform for programmable autolysis in E. coli
    V Siciliano, L Cassella, A Petrosino, F Liguori, MC Cannarsa, ...
    2026