Our research is divided in two main activities: hemophysics and single-molecule angular dynamics.

 

Our activity in hemophysics focuses on microcirculatory blood flows associated to red blood cells(RBCs) dynamics. The complexity of the mechanical behavior of their membrane associated with the flow greatly influences the transport of blood in physiological, pathological or artificial situations. Understanding such behavior requires a multi-scale study capable of integrating a complete vision of the behavior of a single RBC and transposes it in the case of a concentrated suspension of the same objects. In these problems, the object affects the flow, which in turn exerts a force on the object and deforms it. Our group explores the physics of blood rheology with a multi-scale approach, tackling problems linking red blood cells (RBCs) membrane mechanics to their flow in complex microcirculatory situations both in health and in diseases. We use high-speed video-microscopy, sate-of-the-art force measurement techniques (micropipettes, optical tweezers, rheometer...), as well as microfluidics to produce both biomimetic flow conditions and textured lipid vesicles.

 

 

 

Our activity in single-molecule angular dynamics aims to develop novel tools in single-molecule manipulation and detection to unravel new interesting dynamics in biological systems. We focus on angular manipulation at the single-molecule level using novel optical and magnetic tweezers. We use these and other techniques to study the rotation of the flagellar motor in E.coli. Find more information here.