User:Pujol

I am a post doc in the group of Biomechanics of morphogenesis at the CRG Barcelona and I am a participant of the EMBO practical course Light sheet microscopy 2014

Academic background and current research project
After an initial training as a material science engineer at INSA de Lyon (France) I moved to biophysics and cytoskeleton mechanics for my doctoral studies in the laboratory of Physics and Mechanics of Heterogeneous Media at the ESPCI Paris Tech institute (Paris, France).

Thought different structures actin networks are involved in many aspects of the cells' mechanical behavior spamming from shaping, deformability to migration but there mechanics are far from being well understood. During my phD I developed an original experiment where dense branched actin networks are polymerized around superparamagnetic particles using a set of purified proteins. In an homogenous magnetic field, superparamagnetic colloids behave like magnets and therefore attract each others leading to the chaining of the colloids. The force between the colloids depending on the magnetic field intensity, we were able to access mechanicals properties of the gels through there indentation curves. Those measurements helped us to understand microscopic mechanisms underlying the deformation of dense actin networks and identify the keys parameter setting a network rigidity.

I started my post doc at CRG (Barcelona, Catalonia) in september 2013 in Jérôme Solon's lab. We are interested in understanding how forces are generated and regulated during one of the major tissue remodeling event of Drosophilia morphogenesis : the germ band retraction. During this first year, I obtained preliminary data with the Lightsheet Z.1 - Zeiss (lent to my institute for a couple of months) and completed the assembly of our home made SPIM ( the first picture is a couple of days old :) :) :) ).