Biomimetic materials inspired by embryogenesis (This offer is no longer available.)

Our research group is interested in the mechanisms responsible for the generation of molecular order in living systems. To this end, we assemble and study biochemical molecular systems capable of self-organization in space and time.

In particular, we are developing a reaction-diffusion mechanism based on DNA and enzymes that generate spatial concentration structures, such as chemical waves. We also use an active material consisting of filaments and molecular motors from the cytoskeleton (microtubules and kinesin) that generates forces locally and thus spatial flow structures.

This biomimetic approach has two objectives. On the one hand, by studying simple molecular systems that mimic their biological counterparts, we hope to gain a better understanding of the emergence of order in living organisms, particularly during morphogenesis. On the other hand, these dynamic molecular systems can be seen as a new type of material with properties that are common in living organisms but rare in synthetic materials: materials capable of self-organizing, moving, and “communicating” with living organisms.

In this context, and depending on the intern's interests, several internship topics are possible. The first topic concerns the experimental study of the emergence of spatiotemporal structures in active matter. What instabilities are involved? What parameters control these instabilities? A second topic aims to couple these two major types of mechanisms in a model system based on DNA, protein filaments, and molecular motors. What happens when active matter is coupled with reaction-diffusion? What types of structures appear? Can this system be used to better understand chemo-mechanical and mechano-chemical couplings in biology?

This experimental internship will take place at the Jean Perrin Laboratory at Sorbonne University. It is an interdisciplinary environment at the interface between biophysics, synthetic biology, soft matter physics, and molecular programming. We use a variety of tools for this experimental work, including nucleic acid and cytoskeletal protein biochemistry, PCR, nanopore sequencing, fluorescence microscopy, instrumentation, image analysis, and microfluidics.

 

Lobato-Dauzier N., Maitra A., Estevez-Torres A., Galas J.C., Confinement Determines Transport of a Reaction-Diffusion Active Matter Front, Physical Review X, 2025

B. Blanc, J. N. Agyapong, I. Hunter, J.-C. Galas, A. Fernandez-Nieves, S. Fraden, Collective chemomechanical oscillations in active hydrogels, PNAS, 2024

Galas J-C, Estévez-Torres A, Van Der Hofstadt M, Long-Lasting and Responsive DNA/Enzyme-Based Programs in Serum-Supplemented Extracellular Media, ACS Synthetic Biology, 2022

Senoussi A, Galas J-C, Estévez-Torres A, Programmed mechano-chemical coupling in reaction-diffusion active matter, Science Advances, 2021

Senoussi A, Kashida S, Voituriez R, Galas J-C, Maitra A, Estévez-Torres A, Tunable corrugated patterns in an active gel sheet, PNAS, 2019