Simon DE BECO
Institut Jacques Monod, CNRS UMR7592
Univ. Paris-Cité, Paris, FR
Simon focused on the study of regulatory loops to control cellular behavior, at the cell and tissue scales. Biologist by training, he carried out his thesis at the physics/biology interface in the team of François Amblard (Physico-Chimie Curie laboratory, Paris), on the dynamics of E-cadherin and its role in the maintenance of the mechanical balance of the epithelia. He then carried out 2 post-doctoral positions: he first worked on cellular competition between cells with different growth properties, in the laboratory of Laura Johnston at Columbia University. Then he returned to France, in the laboratory of Maxime Dahan and Mathieu Coppey at the Institut Curie, where he studied the protein interaction networks involved in the formation of Rho GTPase gradients, cell polarity and migration, using a quantitative approach using optogenetics and FRET sensors. Since 2019 he has become a lecturer at Paris Cité University. His research activity is focused on cellular mechanics at the tissue scale, and more particularly its roles in epithelial homeostasis and collective migration.
Chloé GRAZON
Institut des Sciences Moléculaires, CNRS UMR5255, Bordeaux, FR
Chloé Grazon is a former student of the University of Rennes I then of ESPCI Paris-PSL, graduating in 2009. She completed her doctoral thesis at ENS Cachan under the supervision of R. Méallet-Renault and G. Clavier, in collaboration with J. Rieger and B. Charleux. His thesis focused on the synthesis of fluorescent polymer nanoparticles. For that, she developed a RAFT polymerization process in a “one-pot” miniemulsion using vinyl BODIPY, in order to obtain core/shell particles that are perfectly stable in water and extremely shiny. She then worked for 9 months in R&D on a fixed-term contract at L’Oréal then for 3 and a half years in the start-up Nexdot on the development of ligands for Quantum Dots used in fluorescence imaging or in the field of screens and lighting. In 2019 she obtained a 3-year Marie-Curie European scholarship, the first two years of which took place at Boston University with M. W. Grinstaff then a year in France at Bordeaux University with S. Lecommandoux. The very stimulating and dynamic.
Scott WILCOCKSON
Francis Crick Institute, London, UK
Scott Wilcockson obtained his PhD at the University of Manchester, UK, under the supervision of Prof. Hilary Ashe. Here he applied live imaging and Drosophila genetics to study stem cell-niche communication in the ovarian germline. He is now a postdoc under the supervision of Dr. Caroline Hill at the Francis Crick Institute, UK, where he is applying biosensors of cell signalling in vivo to investigate the role of signalling dynamics in early zebrafish embryonic tissue patterning.
Kateryna SHKARINA
Institute of Innate Immunity
University Hospital Bonn, Bonn, DE
Kateryna is a senior postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Innate Immunity, University Hospital Bonn. She obtained her Master´s degree in Biology from the National Taras Shevchenko University of Kyiv in 2015, and subsequently moved to pursue her doctoral studies in the group of Prof. Dr. Petr Broz at the Biozentrum Basel and later at the University of Lausanne. Her Ph.D. research was largely focused on the development of novel chemogenetic and optogenetic tools to selectively control three major forms of regulated cell death – pyroptosis, apoptosis, and necroptosis, both in vitro and in animal models. After obtaining her doctoral degree in 2021, she joined the laboratory of Prof. Dr. Eicke Latz as an SNSF postdoctoral fellow. In her current research, she combines cell biology techniques, such as optogenetics, genetically encoded signaling reporters and high-resolution cell imaging, with various biochemical and immunological approaches to understand the intracellular compartmentalization and regulation of inflammatory forms of cell death, as well as their effect on the bystander immune and non-immune cells.
