Thesis: Studio delle sequenze di DNA come processo statistico dinamico
Area of Research : Analysis of the statistical properties of DNA sequences as dynamical processes.
Thesis: Localized solutions in a model of DNA helicoidal structure (pdf and ps.gz)
Feb-Jul 1998: Visitor at Ecole Normale Superieure de Lyon. Collaboration with M.
Peyrard, S. Cocco.
Area of Research : Application of analitical thechniques and stochastic methods to biophysical and non linear systems.
Jan-Jul 2001: Visitor at Ecole Normale Superieure de Lyon. Research in protein and chromatin dynamics, collaboration with M. Peyrard, S. Lepri, B. Berge, C. Place.
I am interested in understanding the physical mechanisms underlying the functioning of biological systems, and especially to all processes involving DNA. The central theme that we develop in the team Multiscale Modeling of living matter (Interface physics pole) is the study of the functional dynamics of the chromatin fiber.
I am particularly interested, in the recent years, in the topology of the chromatin fiber and its role in the interpretation of magnetic tweezers experiments allowing to manipulate unique chromatin fibers. We hypothesized that a reversal of the nucleosome chirality, induced by the application of a torque, may give rise to a new nucleosome conformation, wound on the right, which we named the reversome (or R-octasome).
This work also involved the introduction of new methods for performing simulation, especially developed by Pascal Carrivain during his PhD.
On the other hand, the M3V team has integrated following my arrival, a new line of research, namely the study of the mechanisms of searching for target sequences along the DNA adopted by proteins, and their involvement in the regulation of gene expression. This research line also open the way to the study of important electrostatic effects in chromatin organization.
Our group is also at the origin of the GDR Nuclear & Genomes Organization and Dynamics (DNA&G), a Physics institute (INP) of CNRS research network including more than 80 French teams working in the broad field of nuclear architecture and functional dynamics of chromosomes.
More recently, my interest has been focused on the properties of chromosomes on a larger scale, which can be approached using polymer physics. This approach has been the subject of the thesis of Antony Lesage (2017-2019) and Timothy Foldes (2020-2023) and is at the center of the ANR project ADN-PolyChrom (2020-2024) for which I am the project leader.
