I am a PhD student of Marie Doumic (INRIA) and Christian Schmeiser (University of Vienna). I have a grant from ENS de Lyon.
We are interested in the modeling and study of autophagy, a cellular process, that destroys nocive elements such as old mitochondria. To enable this, the cell creates a structure called autophagosome. Hereafter you will find a scheme (from Claudine Kraft and Sascha Martens. Mechanisms and regulation of autophagosome formation. Current Opinion in Cell Biology , 24(4):496 – 501, 2012) that shows the different steps in the formation of the autophagosome. This structure is an aggregate made out of two kind of proteins : proteins such as LC3B that are found in membranes and p62. p62 can bind to Ubiquitin, a protein known to be a marker, for elements to be destroyed. So that p62 is the intermediate between the nocive elements and the membrane of the autophagosome that grows around, and enwraps it.
We are currently interested in the modeling of aggregation of Ubiquitin and p62, and we work together with biologist from Martens’ team (MFPL, University of Vienna)
