CENTURI Internal newsletter

#2 - November 2018

CENTURI post-doc call currently open for applications

CENTURI wishes to attract talented postdoctoral fellows to the Luminy campus. To do so, CENTURI will fund up to 10 postdoctoral positions to start in 2019, for a maximum of two years.

 

CENTURI post-doc call is open for applications from research teams until November 15, 2018. The available postdoctoral projects will be advertised online at https://centuri-livingsystems.org/recruitment/, until November 30.

 

Postdocs will work in an interdisciplinary life science environment, and have backgrounds in any of the following fields: cell, developmental biology, immunology, neurobiology, biophysics, theoretical physics, computer science, bioinformatics, applied mathematics, engineering. Postdoc projects that had been pre-selected for the 2017-2018 call can be resubmitted.

 

Postdoc candidates also have the possibility to submit their own project (subject to the support of the proposed host team(s) and provided that it meets the eligibility criteria).

 

Calendar – dates

  • Project submission (from CENTURI research teams): October 4 - November 15, 2018.
  • Publication of projects and opening of the call for candidates: October 16 – November 30, 2018
  • Preselection of candidates (CENTURI research committee): December 06
  • Interviews (ad hoc committee): January 10-11, 2019
  • Results of the call: January 11
  • Final answer (from candidates): January 21

Opening of CENTURI PhD Call on November 15

CENTURI wishes to attract talented PhD students to the Luminy campus. To do so, CENTURI will fund up to 12 PhD fellowships to start in 2019, for three years.

PhD students will work in an interdisciplinary life science environment, and have backgrounds in any of the following fields: cell, developmental biology, immunology, neurobiology, biophysics, theoretical physics, computer science, bioinformatics, applied mathematics, engineering. PhD projects that had been pre-selected for the 2017-2018 call can be resubmitted.

PhD project applications should involve at least two research groups from different disciplines among the CENTURI partners. The rationale for having at least two partners is twofold: (i) to foster collaborations and (ii) to ensure that a student in a given discipline receives advice from a supervisor in his or her field of study (e. g. a physics student hosted in a biology team with a biologist as the primary supervisor can obtain advice from a physics supervisor).

CENTURI PhD call will be open for applications from research teams from November 15 to December 31, 2018. Get prepared to submit a project!

CENTURI PhD call will be open for application from PhD candidates from January 10, 2019.

CENTURI Tech Transfer Day – November 9

CENTURI is organizing the “CENTURI Tech Transfer day” on November 9, from 10 a.m. to 4.00 p.m., at the CIML.

 

This day aims to present CENTURI’ various missions and activities in the field of engineering and Tech Transfer. The CENTURI Tech Transfer day will also include presentations of the preselected projects of the Tech Transfer and Development call (in the morning). The afternoon will be dedicated to the presentation of the current platforms as well as short scientific presentations of early-stage engineering collaborative projects.

 

If you wish to attend the event, you can register by sending an email to Sophie Brustlein (sophie.brustlein@univ-amu.fr)

 

Schedule of the day

 

10.15 a.m. -10.30 a.m. Welcome coffee

10.30 a.m. -11 a.m. CENTURI Tech transfer mission and platform (R. Cossart, S. Brustlein, S. Legendre)

11 a.m. -12 a.m. Presentation of the pre-selected projects (25min+5)

- PolarImaging: Polarization split module to access proteins conformation dynamics and  organization (S. Brasselet, Institut Fresnel)

- FIP: Flexible multimodal Imaging Probe (H. Rigneault, Institut Fresnel)

12 a.m. -1.30 p.m. Lunch

1.30 p.m. -2.30 p.m. Platform presentations (12min+3)

- IBDM (C. Matthews), INMED (F. Michel), CIML (M. Fallet)

- 3D printing, Fablab (B. Detailleur, IBDM)

2.30 p.m. - 3.30 p.m. Presentation of early-stage engineering collaborative projects (6min+4)

A new method for live imaging of transcription (A. Barriere, IBDM)

Field effect transistor based chemo/bio sensors  (A. Charrier, CINAM)

To get out of obsolescence of a two photon microscope (C. Matthews, IBDM)

Quantitative phase imaging (H. Rigneault, Institut Fresnel)

A novel cost effective FACS-based 5'-end single-cell RNAseq method (P. Milpied, CIML)

- An automated and expanded laminar flow chamber for single bond kinetics measurements (P. Robert, LAI/APHM)

CENTURI Scientific day – November 30, 2018

The second CENTURI Scientific Day will take place on Friday, November 30, at the CIML.

This scientific day aims to gather our scientific community and to foster new interdisciplinary collaborations and projects. Its goal is also to encourage applications to CENTURI PhD and postdoc calls.

To do so, we invite you to propose short oral presentations (8-10 minutes), focusing on new collaboration projects and/or needs. Presentations should focus on the interdisciplinary projects you would like to develop and for which you’re looking for a partner lab. A poster session will also be organized, to facilitate scientific interactions.

To attend the event, please register by sending an email to info@centuri-livingsystems.org, by November 23 at the latest.

If you are interested in giving a short presentation or presenting a poster during that day, please write an email describing shortly the title of your talk and a short description (3-4 lines) to Simon Legendre (simon.legendre@univ-amu.fr), by November 16 at the latest.

CENTURI training course – Cell biology by the numbers, Rob Phillips

The use of centralized, curated and quantitative data is becoming increasingly important in today’s biology. The course « Cell biology by the numbers » has highlighted the key numbers which describe the lives of the cells and the necessary efforts to provide definitive statements about their value. This course, intended for biologists, has provided participants with the appropriate mathematical tools to apprehend and explore the key numbers of cell biology and many key physico-chemical processes. The course has provided key examples about sizes, concentrations, energies and key quantities that describe the living world, in both an entertaining and surprising fashion. Practical sessions, dedicated to programming (Python), have been organised every afternoon.

 

This course, organized from November 5 to November 9, has gathered a total of 35 participants: Master 2 students, PhD students and postdoctoral fellows from the CENTURI community.

Data analyst position currently open for applications

CENTURI is seeking a highly motivated research engineer to fill the post of « leading data scientist/data analyst », within CENTURI’s technology transfer platform. This position will be a central point for data analysis, data sharing and code sharing within our research community.

The recruited candidate will advise and provide support to researchers with data analysis and data mining, organize and conduct courses on bioinformatics and data analysis, help in the setup of an infrastructure for data sharing, assist in technology transfer and help transfer tools and skills towards research groups and platforms.

The successful candidate will be managing the data lab team of the CENTURI engineering platform. CENTURI offers a three-year contract from the Aix-Marseille Université.

More information about the offer:  https://centuri-livingsystems.org/job-offer-data-analyst/

 

Deadline for application: November 23, 2018. We invite you to share this job opening with your professional network.

CENTURI summer school and internship program

The CENTURI Summer School has been created to build bridges between scientists and engineers, allowing them to meet, exchange and work together on interdisciplinary projects.

 

This six-day summer school, entitled “From data to biology and back – reverse engineering biological networks” will take place from June 3 to June 12, in Marseille, on the Luminy campus. Aimed at students from engineering schools interested in biology, this summer school will provide students with a unique opportunity to apply their skills in mathematics, physics and computational science to major biology questions, through hands-on projects. It will introduce major open questions of systems biology and provide the unique experience of addressing an important question in biology through the use of state-of-the-art techniques for analyzing and modelling data sets. The main goal of this summer course is to help these students find exciting new research areas and grasp the great challenge that biology is offering engineers in the century ahead. Highly motivated students may decide to continue this training with an internship in our labs and/or with our academic and industrial international partners. Students will also be given the unique opportunity to apply to the “CENTURI” interim year program.

 

In close relation with CENTURI Summer School, CENTURI offers 3 to 6 months internships in research laboratories to highly motivated engineering students. CENTURI internship program is the opportunity for students to apply their skills in maths, physics and computer science to biological questions. The internships are coupled with the CENTURI Summer School, but students can also apply to the summer school only.

 

The CENTURI summer school is open for applications until March 31, 2019. The course is limited to 25 participants: https://centuri-livingsystems.org/centuri-summer-school-2019/

Next CENTURI Seminars

The CENTURI seminars take place in the Hexagone's auditorium (1.30 pm to 2.30 pm).

 

  • External Seminar - November 19: Eric Goles (Universidad Adolfo Ibañez, Santiago, Chile)

Threshold networks: dynamics and applications

  • Internal Seminar -December 3: Anais Baudot (Internal seminar – Marseille Medical genetics)

Mining networks to study rare and common diseases

  • External Seminar - December 10: Jean-Marc Allain (Ecole Polytechnique, Paris, France)

Multiscale mechanics of soft tissues

 

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