After his conference "Science and the World's future" in the Institut Jacques Monod / Paris Diderot, we had the pleasure to welcome Bruce ALBERTS at the CRI in Paris thursday 1st and Friday 2nd of July 2010.
Bruce Alberts, president of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C., is a respected biochemist recognized for his work both in biochemistry and molecular biology. He is noted particularly for his extensive study of the protein complexes that allow chromosomes to be replicated, as required for a living cell to divide.
He is one of the original authors of "The Molecular Biology of the Cell", considered the leading textbook of its kind and used widely in U.S. colleges and universities. His most recent text, "Essential Cell Biology" (1998), is intended to approach this subject matter for a wider audience.
Bruce Alberts homepage
Ariel Lindner, Pascal Hersen, Bruce Alberts, François Taddei at the CRI (2/7/2010)
WISER Summer 2010 is the first WISER-U* global event that will put together change makers in education, research and innovation and university students from all over the world. The most bright brains will meet and share the creative ideas on the next-generation methodology and technology which will reform the future of education and research.
When & Where ?
From 18th to 24th of August 2010 in Yuanpei School of Peking University.
You will enjoy Wiser Summer 2010 if...
you are a university student;
you believe that you have some ideas to share or projects to construct that may havesignificant impact on science, education and research;
you are eager to meet and share your creativity with like-minded brilliant brains from all over the world;
you are convinced that by sharing ideas and efforts with others you can achieve much more than do everything alone;
you believe that the great potential of new technologies will be a leading force to change the world into a nicer place and you are also willing to build a bridge between these techs and everyday requirements in science, education and research;
... if so, do not miss the opportunity to participate Wiser Summer 2010 !
Join the WISER-U community, build your team and register to present your idea or project for a Wiser Summer at Peking University from 18th to 24th of August 2010.
Before the end of May you have to create a group in WISER-U Community and register your participation in the registration form, describing briefly your team, your project and how contact you.
For any specific questions you can contact the Wiser-U community contact us in the WiserCafé or directly in the Social Network.
Don't be afraid to post mad ideas, go ahead, we love out of the box ideas.
Registration form : register your team before the 31st of May 2010
A few info : about the event
WEBSITE : http://wiser-u.net/summer/
Contact : Luping Xu
*WISER-U (World-Wide Interaction for Science Education and Research) is a non-profit international association created one year ago by students and scientists who are passionate to share ideas and develop projects for the future of Science, Education and Research. We are dedicated to design and develop new technologies to create a global platform where students and researchers from all over the world can share their ideas and create projects together. By increasing the contacts between like-minded creative students we will catalyze exchanges, foster projects on-line and/or in real life and build networks of ideas, learners and places of creativity where projects can be turned into reality. Wiser Summer 2010 is supported by CRI (Centre de Recherches Interdisciplinaires) in Paris and Yuanpei School of Peking University.
Big event this April 19th 2010 at the CRI with the first FdV thesis defence !
The ED 474 FdV graduate school has been created late 2006, and Lydia ROBERT is our first PhD student to obtain her doctorate in interdisciplinary sciences.
Many students came to attend while she presented publicly her thesis : "Phenotipic variability and aging in Escherichia coli"
She impressed the members of the Jury who gave her the "very honourable" grade with "congratulations of the jury" .
Congratulations, Lydia !
Lydia Robert with the members of the jury, Didier Chatenay, Didier Mazel, Andrew Murray and François Taddei (her PhD supervisor).
![Prof. David Botstein[wp], the director of the Lewis-Sigler Institute at Princeton at the CRI Paris, 29 and 30 of March 2010](images/botstein-david-CRI.jpg)
Prof. David Botstein[wp], the director of the Lewis-Sigler Institute at Princeton is with us at the CRI, 29 and 30 of March.
Two talks on consecutive days are planned that reflect Botstein's excellence both in quantitative biology research and education:
Monday March 29th
9h30- 11h30: "The fruits of the genome for society"
(presentation + open discussion)
Botstein's lab : http://www.princeton.edu/genomics/botstein/
16h00 - 19h00: Informal meeting with AIV & FdV students
Tuesday March 30th
9h30- 11h30 : "Merging education and research-The Lewis-Sigler institute"
(presentation + open discussion).
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The Lewis-Sigler Institute was established to innovate in research and teaching at the interface of modern biology and the more quantitative sciences. It has a quite unique collaborative structure where undergraduate students are integrated within the institute's research endeavors and all faculty, PhD and post-docs take part in the teaching, through interactive courses and lab work.
David Botstein, member of the American Academy of sciences and awardee of numerous prestigious prizes, has made fundamental contributions to modern genetics, including the discovery of many yeast and bacterial genes and the establishment of key techniques that are commonly used today as the method for mapping genes that laid the groundwork for the Human Genome Project.
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Short Biography
David Botstein (born 1942 in Switzerland) is an American biologist who has been the director of the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics at Princeton University since 2003.
He graduated from Harvard in 1963 and received a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1967. He then taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he became a Professor of Genetics. In 1990, he became Chairman of the Department of Genetics at Stanford University. He has also worked for Genentech, as the Vice President - Science. Dr. Botstein was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 1981 and to the Institute of Medicine in 1993.
Botstein is the director of the Integrated Science Program at Princeton University. Many of his students have gone on to be very successful in the field of molecular biology.
In 1980, Botstein and his colleagues Ray White, Mark Scolnick, and Ron Davis proposed a method for mapping genes that was used in subsequent years to identify several human disease genes including Huntington's and BRCA1. Variations of this method were used in the mapping efforts that predated and enabled the sequencing phase of the Human Genome Project.
In 1998, Botstein and his postdoctoral fellow Michael Eisen, together with graduate student Paul Spellman and colleague Patrick Brown, developed a statistical method and graphical interface that is widely used to interpret genomic data including microarray data.
Botstein has won the Eli Lilly and Company Award in Microbiology (1978), the Genetics Society of America Medal (1988), the Allen Award of the American Society of Human Genetics (1989) and the Gruber Prize in Genetics (2003).
He is the brother of the conductor Leon Botstein. Both of Botstein's parents were physicians.
David Botstein with Eva Maria Schoetz, Miroslav Radman and François Taddei, CRI conference
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 !