Enrico Carlon

Enrico Carlon is a Professor at KU Leuven within the Faculty of Sciences and the Department of Physics and Astronomy. He leads the Statistical and Computational Physics research group in the Physics of Soft Matter and Biophysics unit, part of the Physics of Life (PoL@KUL) cluster.

• Research Focus: DNA mechanics, chromatin structure, biomolecular condensates, and SMC protein dynamics
• Teaching: Advanced Statistical Mechanics, Computational Physics (Molecular Dynamics/Monte Carlo), Polymer Physics

Research Interests center on understanding DNA's mechanical behavior under cellular conditions, including

• DNA elasticity across length scales
• Non-local twistable wormlike chain modeling
• Entropic DNA pistons for active transport
• Chromatin microphase separation
• SMC-mediated loop extrusion mechanics
• DNA-mediated allostery mechanisms

His article trends emphasize computational modeling of DNA's statistical mechanics, with recent work on topological domain analysis, coarse-grained DNA simulations, and chromatin structure inference from microscopy data.

Scientific Awards:

• 2024 Editor's Pick for 'Insights into elastic properties of coarse-grained DNA models'
• 2025 Editors' Suggestion for 'Statistical mechanics of multiplectoneme phases in DNA'
• Selected for special issue on 'Chromatin Structure and Dynamics' (2025)

Advising includes PhD students Lucas Dooms, Arianna Fassino, Eva Punter, and Midas Segers, plus master students like Fritz Förster (TU Dresden collaboration). His lab develops computational approaches within the Physics of Life cluster, collaborating with international groups on DNA's role in nanopore proteomics and chromosome organization.