Johan Paulsson
Dept of Systems Biology, Harvard Med School
Very Special IF this friday 26/02/2010 at 15:00 !
Quantitative approaches to phenotypic heterogeneity in single cells
Abstract: Life in single cells is dictated by chance: Reactions that involve small numbers of molecules generate spontaneous fluctuations that enslave all dependent processes. Such 'noise' can randomize developmental pathways, disrupt cell cycle control or force metabolites away from their optimal levels. It can also be exploited for advantageous heterogeneity or even for more deterministic control. I will discuss new conceptual frameworks for analyzing such processes, addressing many of the complications and challenges in cellular dynamics in ways that promote intuition and facilitate comparisons with experiments. The principles discussed will be illustrated by homeostatic feedback control, partitioning at cell division, stochastic gene expression, multimerization, and small RNAs.
Links about Johan Paulsson :
http://sysbio.med.harvard.edu/faculty/paulsson/
http://paulsson.med.harvard.edu/Paulsson_Lab.htm
Simon Houriez, director of "Signes de sens"
website : www.signesdesens.org
Very Special IF this friday 26/02/2010 at 17:30 !
SIGNES DE SENS works on accessibility to Knowledge and Arts for deaf people. It has been doing this work for six years ; 10 people are employed by the organization. Our work is based on a simple idea : everyone deserves to be able to educate, whatever communication means they use. Everyone deserves specific learning tools to develop curiosity and to learn.
2 GOALS
- Support deaf community. Help it to enlighten and strengthen itself, while being respected as a inority. We propose and create specific tools to help the deaf community in achieving these goals.
- Encourage deaf and hearing people to mix, on equal level basis. Fight against illiteracy. Offer deaf people the opportunity to get access knowledge by reading.
3 ACTIVITIES
- Cultural activities : Propose bilingual cultural activities (French / French Sign language) : theater shows, workshops, exhibition. Make cultural and art places accessible to deaf people : museum, theaters, libraries. We work in France and abroad
- Publishing : Create multimedia tools (books, DVD, the Internet) using mime, sign language, video and pictures. Learn, discover and dream. For everyone : deaf or hearing people. Conte sur tes doigts publishing
- Web : Use the Internet (social networks, web 2.0, video...) for deaf people' access to Knowledge. Use the Internet to learn, meet people, get information...
Few words from Simon to present his background and activities :
"I was studying since a long time and I was quite successful but there was always this question about the meaning of things, the use of learning and searching, as i wanted to become a researcher in physical chemistry. Why do we learn so many things?I think nobody never asked me during my scholar path about this "why?" or "what for?" and often the answer is about getting a good job, a job that firstly allow you to earn enough money to live and secondly an interesting job. About the first part of course you have to think of it but for the second one.. what does that mean "interesting" ? To me, after some personal problems that made me think about "life", this question of interst was central, and i quited my studies to start something else, something "out of the books"and "interesting". I met a deaf guy and I discovered deafness and all the problematic. It was amazing and I started to think about this question, I had an idea an then an other.. I tryed.. I asked someone to help me and an other one.. I developped this project .. as a researcher I suppose. Then the organisation "Signes de sens" was born and it is still running an developing projects about accessibility to knowledges and culture for deaf people. Everything I will explain soon !"
French links :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eh79hezDK80
http://www.ashoka.org/shouriez
François Taddei : pour un nouveau modèle d'éducation
TEDx PARIS, 30 janvier 2010
Pour visionner la vidéo cliquez sur l'image ci-dessous :
Ingénieur devenu généticien, François Taddei est chercheur en biologie des systèmes à l'Inserm. Il est également un spécialiste reconnu de l'évolution et milite pour des approches interdisciplinaires notamment sur les questions du vieillissement et de la longévité.
Diplômé de Polytechnique et des Eaux et Forêts, François Taddei est devenu biologiste et directeur d'une unité de recherche à l'Inserm. Il est l'auteur de nombreuses publications dans des revues scientifiques internationales telles que Nature ou Science. Participant à différents groupes de travail sur l'avenir de la recherche et de l'enseignement supérieur, François Taddei a contribué à « France 2025 » (Diagnostic stratégique : dix défis pour la France). Dans un rapport sur l'éducation remis à l'OCDE, François Taddei préconise l'adaptation, la réflexion "ensemble", et l'utilisation maximale de tous les savoirs disponibles, notamment informatiques. Il propose que la France s'inspire de la "culture du questionnement" du système finlandais, et propose la création d'un site Internet dédié au partage de l'expérience entre professeurs.
Dans un rapport sur l'éducation remis à l'OCDE, François Taddei préconise l'adaptation, la réflexion "ensemble", et l'utilisation maximale de tous les savoirs disponibles, notamment informatiques. Il propose que la France s'inspire de la "culture du questionnement" du système finlandais, et propose la création d'un site Internet dédié au partage de l'expérience entre professeurs.
copyright TEDx PARIS 2010
AXA Research Fund campaign for Doctoral grants in 2010
Deadline for application through the FdV school : March 19th 2010 at 12:00 AM
The AXA Research Fund has launched its campaign for Doctoral grants in 2010.
The AXA Research Fund supports scientists and institutions of excellence worldwide, where research is linked to life, societal and environmental risks.
Here are the eligible research fields :
Life risks
Aging and long term care
Addictions and risky behaviours
Emerging biomedical risks
SocioEconomic Risks
Geopolitical risks
Macro-economicrisks
Large corporate risks
Environmental risks
Natural catastrophes
Risks linked to climate change
The AXA PhD funding provides a minimum annual gross salary of €25 000 for a period of 3 years.
Procedure : only those institutions referenced by the AXA Research Fund may present applicants for
funding. The AXA Fund does not accept any unsolicited applications from individual students.
The Paris descartes University will submit 2 applications for all its doctoral schools (Frontières du Vivant being one of them).
More informations :
- AXA Research Fund PhD applications Instructions
- AXA Doctoral candidate file
If you are interested to apply through the FdV school, please contact us as soon as possible by email sent to
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
and don'forget the FdV application deadline : March 19th 2010 at 12:00 AM
For the coming 2009/10 year, 14 applications for scientific clubs at the CRI... What an enthusiastic success !
All the projects we reviewed are serious, interesting and seem to gather a sufficient number of participants and all can proceed with the support of the Liliane Bettencourt Program that generously helps the CRI activities !
This year's clubs are :
- Ageing
- AIW - Approches Interdisciplinaires du Web (Interdisciplinary apporaches to web science)
- Art and Science
- Cellular Metabolism
- Genome 2009
- How to change the world + Science for development
- In vitro Artificial Intelligence
- Interdisciplinary Approaches of Gastronomy
- Interdisciplinary Approaches of Information
- Neurobiology and Optics
- Scientific Integrity
- Synthetic Biology
- Wiser U
- Wonders of Nature
Those of you who have not yet joined the clubs, go ahead and join your favorite club(s) in the Moodle !
The Ile de France region launched several calls for projects and doctorate fellowships that may interest you as PD student or Master student -future PhD candidate !
Attention! Most of these calls have their deadline at the beginning of february 2010 !
Conférence introductive du premier Symposium Interdisciplinaire de Doctorants à Paris
animée par Denis Guedj
Evelyn Fox Keller presents : "Climate Science, Truth, and Democracy"
Very Special IF this friday 27/11/2009 at 17:00 !
An impasse of credibility currently prevails in the US around the issues of climate change that threatens to paralyze citizens and experts alike. Much of the internet, radio talk shows, and popular television is flooded with challenges to the credibility and trustworthiness of climate scientists, and even the prestige press (e.g., NY Times and NYRB) has, in an effort to adhere to their traditional ethic of "balance," has contributed to the widespread misimpression that climate scientists are deeply divided about both the extent of the dangers we face and the relevance of human activity. Not knowing who or what to believe, not knowing how to assess the costs of inaction, the natural response for most people is to do nothing. Meanwhile, the evidence of the seriousness of the problem continues to mount. Most climate scientists, even though extremely concerned, have been reluctant to weigh in on these (often acrimonious) public debates, instead seeking recourse in the particular authority granted them by "peer review," and fearing that going outside, beyond the reach of peer review, might undermine their credibility. The effect is that the debate that rages in the public domain remains unchecked for intellectual or scientific reliability. The situation is dire, for, given that we live in a democratic state, the possibility of any effective action depends absolutely on the consent of a properly informed public. The questions I want to pose are therefore of two kinds: The first concerns the role of expertise in a democratic society, the ways in which lay citizens can responsibly participate in policy decisions, and the question of how a lay reader is to decide who and what to believe. The second concerns the nature and limits of the climate scientist's particular responsibility in this political and social situation.
photo iGEM/David Appleyard
The iGEM PARIS team won a special prize for its works on ethics and Synthetic Biology
Dr. Etienne Couturier presents "Fold and leaf shape" 6/11/09 at the CRI
by (newly promoted) Dr. Etienne Couturier
Laboratoire Matières et Systèmes Complexes, UMR CNRS 7057-Université Paris Diderot
We have noticed an original analogy between the leaf configuration in the bud and the paper dolls. If you fold a paper sheet and cut it with scissors, each fold will give either a sinus either a lobe when you unfold it. A lot of leaves follow this geometry in the bud. The leaf margin is folded on a plane as if it had been cut with scissor For this purely geometric reason, lobes and sinuses of the unfolded leaf exactely correspond to the initial folds. We have called these leaves "kirigami", which means fold and cut.
The purely geometric first part of this thesis shows how much the leaves geometries are constrained by their folded development. We also show that these geometries are very diverse and create very different leaves shapes. The second more biologic part proposes a mecanism for the fold development and a candidate to play the scissor role. We conclude by giving an original insight on leaf shape evolution.
You may have seen Etienne Couturier as he was starting his PhD in the film "Cherche toujours" by Mathias Théry et Etienne Chaillou (2008)... See the end of the story, live !
Misha Gromov (Abel Prize) presents "Biology seen by a great mathematician"
Conference on Friday 23rd 2009 at 17:00
at the CRI, 2nd Floor, Conference room 2006
Faculté de Médecine Paris Descartes
24 rue du Faubourg Saint Jacques 75014 Paris
Don't miss this event !
Mikhail Leonidovich Gromov (Russian, born 23 December 1943) also romanized as Mikhael Gromov or Michael Gromov) is a Franco-Russian mathematician known for important contributions in many different areas of mathematics. He is considered a geometer in a very broad sense of the word.
Misha Gromov, is now permanent professor at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques (IHES at Bures sur Yvette, France) and at the New York University.
He has won many scientific prizes and, recently, the 2009 Abel Prize "for his revolutionary contributions to geometry".
Websites :
http://www.ihes.fr/~gromov/
http://as.nyu.edu/object/IO_3199.html