Internship and thesis proposals
Cell automaton-based simulation of tissue migration in early embryonic development

Domaines
Biophysics
Nonequilibrium statistical physics
Physics of living systems
Non-equilibrium Statistical Physics

Type of internship
Théorique, numérique
Description
This is a new multidisciplinary collaboration between two internationally renown teams: one in biophysics (Paris) and one in cell developmental biology (Montpellier). Embryonic development involves large scale auto-organised tissue remodelling. Gastrulation is the process during which a sphere-like embryo acquires a multi-layered structure with a distinction between an “inside” and an “outside”. This a major event, highly conserved across evolution. This internship focuses on the stage where the mesoderm tissues enter inside the embryo and prepare the head-trunk organisation of the future animal. Our model is here an amphibian, for which the Fagotto team measures experimentally all physical properties (stiffness, adhesiveness, tensions, motility) that control the individual or collective cell activity. We aim at integrating experiment-driven information into a robust numerical simulation of collective movements emerging at tissue scale. This internship will focus on the onset of gastrulation. The intern will exploit an open-source software based on the “cellular Potts model” in the Graner team. The aim is to propose predictions which the Fagotto team will experimentally test.

Contact
François Graner
01 57 27 71 01


Email
Laboratory : MSC - UMR7057
Team : Morphogenèse et Dynamique des Systèmes Auto-Organisés
Team Website
/ Thesis :    Funding :