Section: Application Domains

Dynamics of telomeres

The telomeres are disposable buffers at the ends of chromosomes which are truncated during cell division; so that, over time, due to each cell division, the telomere ends become shorter. By this way, they are markers of aging. Trough a beginning collaboration with Pr A. Benetos, geriatrician at CHU Nancy, we recently data on the distribution of the length of telomeres from blood cells. With some members of Inria team TOSCA, we want to work in three connected directions: (1) refine methodology for the analysis of the available data; (2) propose a dynamical model for the lengths of telomeres and study its mathematical properties (long term behavior, quasi-stationarity, etc); and (3) use these properties to develop new statistical methods. A slot of postdoc position is already planned in the Lorraine Université d'Excellence, LUE project GEENAGE (managed by CHU Nancy).