Olivier Hamant – 2018 HFSP Research grant awardee

Olivier Hamant – 2018 HFSP Research grant awardee

Tue, 03/04/2018

Honors and awards

"Human Frontier Science Program" Research Grants provide 3 years of support for international teams involving at least two countries. Preference is given to intercontinental collaborations. All team members are expected to broaden the character of their research compared to their ongoing research programs and interact with teams bringing expertise that is very different from their own so as to create novel approaches to problems in fundamental biology.

Olivier Hamant, researcher at the RDP at the ENS de Lyon, obtained a grant from the Human Frontier Science Program for his project From molecular stochasticity to robust cell divisions: revisiting the preprophase band that he will coordinate with 4 other partners - David Bouchez in Versailles, Jacques Dumais (Chile), Arp Schnittger (Germany), Eric Mjolsness (USA). This grant amounts to $450 000 per year for 3 years for the whole consortium.

Abstract : Cells achieve reproducible outputs while relying on intrinsically stochastic molecular processes. In plants, cell division orientation is accurately predicted before mitosis by a microtubular ring through an unknown mechanism. Using an interdisciplinary approach, we will investigate how the stochasticity of microtubule self-organization is used, or filtered out, during the formation of the ring, to sense temporal, geometric and mechanical cues, in order to generate a robust placement of cell division planes.

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