Domaines
Biophysics
Soft matter
Physics of liquids
Physics of living systems
Non-equilibrium Statistical Physics
Hydrodynamics/Turbulence/Fluid mechanics
Type of internship
Théorique, numérique Description
Recent advances in imaging techniques have revealed new types of structural organization within cells, where intracellular fluids separate into liquid or solid droplets, much like liquid-liquid emulsions. Protein droplets, for instance, form on the surface of chromosomes at a scale of about 100 nm. Although the physics and chemistry of this process are still poorly understood, better insights could explain phenomena like droplet propulsion. Our team models and simulates these processes numerically, developing simple models of how droplets wet fibers that represent chromosomes. During this internship, we will integrate chemical reactivity into Brownian Dynamics simulations of droplets on chromosomes. Since droplets contain proteins that catalyze reactions on the chromosome surface, we hypothesize that these reactions will affect surface wettability and influence droplet dynamics and structure.
Contact
Vincent Dahirel