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SUMMARY:Bacteria and their Mechanical World: Surface Sensing and Colonizat
 ion
DTSTART:20150423T140000
DTSTAMP:20260509T234315Z
UID:49519686b1327b8bd4ff0340aba52771130d5f7e94ef38435912c07f
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Alexandre Persat\, Ph.D.\, Gitai Lab\, Princeton University\, 
 Princeton\, NJ (USA)\nBIOENGINEERING SEMINARAbstract:\nBacteria have colon
 ized every environment on Earth: oceans\, hot springs\, soil\, and even ou
 r own bodies. Some species are notorious for their ability to infect\; oth
 ers perform beneficial tasks\, for example as they help develop our immune
  system or ferment foods. In the wild\, bacteria are nearly universally as
 sociated with surfaces as opposed to existing as free-swimming\, isolated 
 organisms. Thus\, fluid flow and contact between cells and surfaces are tw
 o ubiquitous and influential mechanical features of bacterial existence in
  natural environments. The goal of my research is to characterize how mech
 anics at surfaces modulate bacterial behaviors. In this talk\, I will port
 ray two strategies illustrating how bacteria leverage mechanics at the sur
 face.\nFirst\, I will describe how the pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa ini
 tiates infection upon contact with a surface. These cells develop adhesive
  pili\, long and thin motorized fibers that extend and retract from their 
 body\, to simultaneously attach onto and sense surfaces. Tension in these 
 pili helps them detect encounter with the substrate. In second example of 
 adaptation to mechanics\, I will describe how bacteria have evolved their 
 morphology to optimize the colonization of surfaces in flow environments. 
 In particular\, I will describe how Caulobacter crescentus uses its curved
  shape to align with flow\, thus optimally orienting its body to enhance t
 he colonization of surfaces. Altogether\, this work highlights the importa
 nce of engineering more realistic growth environments\, such as those with
  fluid flow and surfaces\, to study bacterial development.Bio:\nAlexandre 
 Persat received a B.S. in Engineering from Ecole Polytechnique\, France\, 
 in 2005. He received an M.S. in Chemical Engineering in 2007 and a Ph.D. i
 n Mechanical Engineering in 2011 from Stanford University. He is currently
  working in the department of Molecular Biology at Princeton University as
  a postdoctoral fellow in Zemer Gitai’s laboratory. He is a current fell
 ow of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation through the Life Science Resea
 rch Foundation. His research lies at the intersection of engineering\, bio
 logy and physics. In particular\, it focuses on characterizing how bacteri
 a develop in response to various mechanical environments\, thereby bridgin
 g mechanics and microbiology.
LOCATION:SV1717a http://map.epfl.ch/?room=sv1717a
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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