Recent biological imaging have shown that membrane receptors involved in intracellular signaling pathways are capable of inducing cascades of biochemical reactions from extremely dynamic pools of intracellular compartments. The subcellular trafficking of receptors generates spatio-temporal heterogeneous cellular compartments with a critical role on physiological functions, and profound consequences on the search for new therapeutic strategies.

The candidate will develop new modeling formalism, combining biochemical reaction networks and coagulation-fragmentation dynamics to fully represent the diversity and complexity of signaling pathways. By comparing the models with data from confocal microscopy imaging with super spatio-temporal resolution, the candidate will reveal how the spatio-temporal heterogeneity of intracellular compartments conditions the response of cells to extracellular signals.

The candidate will design efficient numerical schemes for partial differential equation (PDE) of coagulation type to explore the role of endocytosis, recycling and coagulation-fragmentation dynamics in receptor trafficking, as well the importance of highly dynamics phase transition and coarsening phenomena in downstream second messenger activation.

Using ideas from chemical reaction network theory, the candidate will analyse the long-time behavior of the developed models, according to the underlying reaction network topology and coagulation-fragmentation dynamics, and its consequence for cellular response.

Please contact Romain Yvinec (romain.yvinec@inrae.fr) for more information and before applying.

Detailed annoucement and application procedure: https://recrutement.inria.fr/public/classic/en/offres/2022-05220