Keyword: active matter
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Loop extrusion as a writer of chromatin memory
We are interested in the way chromatin organizes inside the nucleus, and in particular how cellular activities define chromatin conformation and how this can affect the transcriptional regulation. In this project the focus is loop extrusion, a process that has been proposed to control transcription, and consists in the activity of a molecular motor (cohesin) that…
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Multiscale control of active multicellular tissues
Emerging collective behaviors observed in multicellular biological tissues are controlled by the activity of the cells that make them up and by their mutual interactions. Such collective phenotypes include collective cell migration or organized supracellular tissue architectures; and span 2D and 3D geometries. However, in vivo, cell populations also strongly interact with their microenvironment via…
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Self-organization of chemotactic cell assemblies
Understanding the self-organization of living systems is one of the biggest conceptual challenges of the present century. A generic mechanism that drives such organization is interaction among the individual elements — which may represent cells, bacteria, or even enzymes — via chemical signals. The ability of an individual cell to follow a gradient of chemicals…