It turns out that microbes account for about half of life on our planet. We are only appreciating recently how much these unseen (and unsung) heroes shape our environment and ourselves. In particular, bacteria are now understood to affect our diet and possibly our brain development. 

Most of our understanding of bacterial physiology stems from the study of planktonic bacteria, free-floating in liquid. In the last decades, it was realized that most bacteria spend their lives in a very different environment, that of organized physically connected communities called biofilms.

Many bacteria initiate biofilm formation by building either by motility, accretion or division of small aggregates referred as microcolonies. These microcolonies, composed of anywhere between a few hundreds to a few thousands bacteria are in many respects the embryo of mature biofilm.

Similarly to what has been discovered in multicellular eukaryotic organisms, intercellular mechanical forces play a crucial role in the physiology of these early biofilms.

The goal of this project is to use bacterial model systems showing stereotypical formation of microcolonies in order to understand the way mechanical forces are transduced to physiological and morphological changes in microcolonies. You will combine molecular biology, genetics, microscopy, micromanipulation and force measurement to pursue this goal during your M2 internship. This subject could also be continued as a PhD thesis. By understanding the role of mechanics in early bacterial interactions we could pave the way for a new avenue to control bacterial proliferation.

Nicolas Biais, Professor of Cellular Biomechanics, Laboratoire Jean Perrin,

Nicolas@mechano-micro-biology.orgor Nicolas.Biais@sorbonne-universite.fr