Section: Contracts and Grants with Industry

DISCO

Participants : Fabien Campillo, Chloé Deygout, Bart Haegeman, Jérôme Harmand, Claude Lobry, Alain Rapaport, Tewfik Sari.

DISCO (Multi-scale modelling bioDIversity Structure COupling in biofilms) is a three years project funded by the ANR SYSCOMM since the end of 2009, that aims at developing and studying computational and mathematical models of biofilm dynamics, taking into account the biodiversity (distribution of bacteria species) and spatial structure.

In 2010, C. Deygout has been hired as a postdoctoral fellow. She is developing a double modelling approach of the formation of single species biofilms in tubular bioreactors. One approach is based on a IBM model with a large number of individuals, while the second one is a system of PDE at the macroscopic level (see Section 6.1.7 ). We aim at understanding the links between the characteristics of the random events (consumption, growth, death, movement) at individual level with the functional expressions of growth, detachment and attachment at the population level.

In 2011, C. Deygout has spent most of her time at HBAN Cemagref to contribute to experiments in tubular plug-flow reactors, the biofilm being observed with the help of confocal microscopy. At that time, the set-up has not allowed yet a fair comparison between model simulations and experimental data.

A new collaboration has been launched with the HBAN team at Cemagref Antony, within this project, about the modelling of cellulose degradation. Cellulose is typically available in small balls (but ten times larger than the average size of microorganisms) that are first converted by enzymatic activity into carbon substrate that can then be assimilated by the microorganisms. Some of the microorganisms are attached to these balls, creating a particular aggregates structure.