Description du sujet de thèse

This PhD project is part of a French-German collaborative project, which aims to unravel the fundamental role of active membrane fluctuations in regulating crucial cellular processes such as membrane organization and cell adhesion. While it's known that cell membrane fluctuations have both thermal and active components, their precise physiological significance, particularly how they influence cellular functions, remains an open and exciting question.

Contexte de travail

The PhD Candidate's Role and Responsibilities: The successful candidate, based at CINAM in Marseille, will be central to the French team's experimental work. Key responsibilities include:
• Develop & Characterize Active Vesicles: Utilize microfluidics techniques to assemble biomimetic giant vesicles encapsulating cell extract. Tune activity by incorporating cytoskeletal proteins and specific lipids to modulate cytoskeleton-membrane interactions.
• Quantify Membrane Fluctuations: Employ advanced optical microscopy (RICM, DODS) to measure and analyze vesicle fluctuation spectra, identifying the respective contributions from cytoskeletal elements and membrane anchoring.
• Study Fluctuation Impact on Adhesion & Lipid Ordering: Reconstitute active vesicles with adhesion molecules to study adhesion dynamics. Investigate how active fluctuations affect lipid domain formation in giant vesicles with defined lipid compositions (e.g., DOPC/DPPC/cholesterol) using fluorescence microscopy (confocal, TIRF…)
• Collaborate: Work closely with the German theory team for data analysis and test theoretical prediction.

Le poste se situe dans un secteur relevant de la protection du potentiel scientifique et technique (PPST), et nécessite donc, conformément à la réglementation, que votre arrivée soit autorisée par l'autorité compétente du MESR.

Contraintes et risques

The position for which you are applying is in a sector covered by the protection of scientific and technical potential (PPST) and therefore requires, in accordance with regulations, that your arrival be authorized by the competent authority”.