Look at the living world
Studying major cellular functions such as genome expression, membrane trafficking, signaling, cell motility, and their organization into tissues requires localizing, measuring, and quantifying in vivo, at microscopic and nanoscopic scales, the dynamics and interactions between molecules of interest (proteins, nucleic acids, lipids, ions).
These studies are currently limited by multiple technological bottlenecks (probes, targeting, optics, detection, phototoxicity, image analysis, modeling).
Modern microscopy results from a series of technological innovations driven by both research and industrial needs.
Strategies to study living systems sit at the interface between various scientific fields and evolve with biological questions.
Key advances in recent years include green fluorescent proteins (GFPs), the widespread use of confocal microscopes (CLSM), commercial laser systems (including femtosecond), and the development of time-resolved fluorescence microscopy.
objectives
The aim of this Research Group (GDR) is to foster knowledge sharing among research teams to develop strategies that overcome current limitations in studying gene expression regulation, nuclear organization, signaling networks, membrane trafficking, and more.
This GDR brings together teams from biology, physics, chemistry, image processing, computer science, and applied mathematics.
The missions of the GDR are:
To bring together interdisciplinary teams and promote the pooling of resources and expertise to develop new strategies in live-cell microscopy.
Through Thematic Actions, teams will be able to initiate collaborative research projects to develop and test new tools.To provide access to cutting-edge strategies via technological platforms.
To establish communication and training tools.
To contribute to building a European network of excellence in live-cell microscopy.
research axes
There are currently significant technological challenges that limit functional investigations in live cells.
These challenges are often independent of specific biological questions.
To overcome them, the GDR proposes to develop five cross-disciplinary methodological and technological approaches:
Architectures and dynamics at the nanometric scale
Measurement and modeling of molecular dynamics and interactions
Control and interactions across the various scales of living systems
Physics and chemistry for biological imaging
Bioimage informatics