[Young Researchers Only]: Cell Motility and Shape Dynamics Driven by Actin Polymerization?  // To Characterize Ice Core Melt-Water Using Microfluidics - Winfried SCHMIDT (EcCel, Liphy) // Tin Wang WONG (MC2, Liphy)

Cell Motility and Shape Dynamics Driven by Actin Polymerization? 

Winfried SCHMIDT (Post-Doc at EcCel, Liphy) 

Mammalian cell migration is essential for many physiological and pathological processes, such as the immune system, embryonic development, wound healing, and cancer metastasis. Cells have developed the amoeboid migration mode which allows them to move rapidly in a variety of different environments, including two-dimensional confinement, three-dimensional matrix, and bulk fluids. We introduce a model for an amoeboid cell where the cell shape evolves due to polymerization of actin filaments. We find that the state of a resting, non-polarized cell can become unstable for sufficiently large actin polymerization velocities, resulting in the spontaneous onset of cell polarity, migration, and dynamical shape changes.

To Characterize Ice Core Melt-Water Using Microfluidics

Tin Wang WONG (PhD at MC2, Liphy)

The glacial archives are worth to be analyzed due to its isotope and micro-organism inside, in order to reconstruct and study the ancient environment. Due to the fact that some microbials are not culturable, these samples should be analyzed immediately after the melting process of ice-core. Here we present a microfluidic technology called deterministic lateral displacement (DLD) array to sort particles in terms of its sizes. The ultimate target of our project is to separate bacteria, fungi, and cells which was included in glacial meltwater, and group them respectively on its size, so they can be further analyzed in genome and other biological aspects.