Section: Highlights of the Year

Highlights of the Year

• The patented approach to produce microalgae under a biofilm form was further optimized with gradient based approaches [71] and strategies to still enhance productivities were identified and tested experimentally [26].

• The introduction of resistant plants for the protection against pathogens often leads to the appearance of virulent pathogenic strains that are capable of infecting these resistant plants. We developed a model for the pyramiding of these qualitative resistances with genetically controlled infection bottlenecks, and showed the efficiency of this technique when the fitness cost of Resistance Breaking pathogen variants in susceptible plants is intermediate [36].

• In the context of ANR project ICycle, following the PhD thesis of Sofia Almeida and in collaboration with F. Delaunay's lab (Institut Biologie Valrose, CNRS), a calibrated and validated model of the mammalian circadian clock was published in [13]. The interactions between the circadian clock and the cell cycle were then investigated [44]. The coupled models replicate the oscillators' period-lock response and recover clock to cell cycle period ratios such as 1:1 or 3:2, as observed in F. Delaunay's lab.

• Lucie Chambon and J.-L. Gouzé won a Best Paper award at the DYCOPS conference in Brazil (April 2019), on original control strategies for the genetic toggle switch.

Best Paper Award: