Periodic Reporting for period 2 - PHYMOT (Physics of Microbial Motility)
Okres sprawozdawczy: 2023-02-01 do 2025-02-28
PHYMOT focuses on the study of the motility of microorganisms, in particular bacteria, algae and trypanosomes. Many of the active processes involved, for instance, the motion of bacteria and algae, and the feeding of marine and sweet-water flagellates, are driven by flagella. These are long tails that generate motion of the microorganism or the fluid that they are embedded in by actively rotating or beating.
The scientific questions and systems related to microbial motility belong to the larger research field of Active Matter, which consists of entities that consume energy to move or perform mechanical work. These entities can be macroscopic living organisms like animals or humans, small-scale microorganisms (bacteria, algae, ..) or even artificial nanoscopic particles that move by transforming chemical energy, light or temperature gradients into motion.
The scientific objective of PHYMOT is to understand the physics of cell motility, from single cells to collective behaviour. Cell swimming underpins a wide range of fundamental biological phenomena from microbial grazing at the base of the food web to parasitic infections and animal reproduction. Research on cell motility is booming, driven by new experimental, theoretical, and numerical tools from mathematics, engineering, and physics. Advances have provided fundamental new insights, from the constraints on single-cell propulsion to the optimality of responses to environmental clues, and promise new technologies based on control of microbial movement.
PHYMOT provides an interdisciplinary research and training program for 15 excellent young Early-Stage Researchers with the opportunity to work on the intersection between academia and industry and to benefit from the interdisciplinary environment where physics, biology and engineering meet.
The questions addressed in PHYMOT have a substantial impact beyond a purely academic interest ranging from food production, new disease treatment strategies, and sustainable and ecological development.
The scientific questions and systems related to microbial motility belong to the larger research field of Active Matter, which consists of entities that consume energy to move or perform mechanical work. These entities can be macroscopic living organisms like animals or humans, small-scale microorganisms (bacteria, algae, ..) or even artificial nanoscopic particles that move by transforming chemical energy, light or temperature gradients into motion.
The scientific objective of PHYMOT is to understand the physics of cell motility, from single cells to collective behaviour. Cell swimming underpins a wide range of fundamental biological phenomena from microbial grazing at the base of the food web to parasitic infections and animal reproduction. Research on cell motility is booming, driven by new experimental, theoretical, and numerical tools from mathematics, engineering, and physics. Advances have provided fundamental new insights, from the constraints on single-cell propulsion to the optimality of responses to environmental clues, and promise new technologies based on control of microbial movement.
PHYMOT provides an interdisciplinary research and training program for 15 excellent young Early-Stage Researchers with the opportunity to work on the intersection between academia and industry and to benefit from the interdisciplinary environment where physics, biology and engineering meet.
The questions addressed in PHYMOT have a substantial impact beyond a purely academic interest ranging from food production, new disease treatment strategies, and sustainable and ecological development.
The start and initial progress of PHYMOT have been hampered by the covid-19 pandemic. It delayed the recruitment of young Early-Stage Researchers (ESRs) and seriously affected mobility and opportunities to meet in person in the first year of the project. Nevertheless, PHYMOT completed recruitment in early 2022 and all ESRs have completed a full year of research and training.
Training events have been organized in Jülich (online due to covid-19 restrictions), in Mallorca, (hosted by the IMEDEA group), and in Zürich hosted (by the ETH group). These training events consisted of scientific courses directly aimed at supporting and developing technical skills for addressing the particular scientific research questions of the ESRs and soft skill courses aiming at improving communication, writing and presentation skills as well as understanding issues concerning career planning and project management. For these courses, experts from within the consortium as well as commercial agencies were recruited.
PHYMOT has organized one 2-day international workshop in Paris (hosted by the ESPCI group) with approximately 100 participants from 15 different countries from Europe as well as from Australia and the USA. All PHYMOT projects were presented at this workshop, in addition to 7 invited speakers and 15 contributed talks.
PHYMOT students and principal investigators have participated in several outreach activities for instance at the European Researchers night 2021, the open day at the Research Center Jülich and at open lab days in participating institutes.
The scientific work in PHYMOT is organized in 3 work packages, i) Motility and sensing by single cells, ii) Collective cell motion and iii) Geometry and microbial motility. Details on the scientific progress of the network can be found in the public deliverable reports posted on this website and on the PHYMOT website.
Training events have been organized in Jülich (online due to covid-19 restrictions), in Mallorca, (hosted by the IMEDEA group), and in Zürich hosted (by the ETH group). These training events consisted of scientific courses directly aimed at supporting and developing technical skills for addressing the particular scientific research questions of the ESRs and soft skill courses aiming at improving communication, writing and presentation skills as well as understanding issues concerning career planning and project management. For these courses, experts from within the consortium as well as commercial agencies were recruited.
PHYMOT has organized one 2-day international workshop in Paris (hosted by the ESPCI group) with approximately 100 participants from 15 different countries from Europe as well as from Australia and the USA. All PHYMOT projects were presented at this workshop, in addition to 7 invited speakers and 15 contributed talks.
PHYMOT students and principal investigators have participated in several outreach activities for instance at the European Researchers night 2021, the open day at the Research Center Jülich and at open lab days in participating institutes.
The scientific work in PHYMOT is organized in 3 work packages, i) Motility and sensing by single cells, ii) Collective cell motion and iii) Geometry and microbial motility. Details on the scientific progress of the network can be found in the public deliverable reports posted on this website and on the PHYMOT website.
From the start of PHYMOT on February 1, 2021, PHYMOT has published 4 peer-reviewed papers (see the publications in the Funding and Tenders portal)
PHYMOT ESRs located at the industrial partners Lyncee Tec (Lausanne) and Synoptics (Cambridge) and at the University of Basel have contributed to the development of several technological innovations and software implementations for studying microbial colonies and for antibiotic susceptibility testing. ESRs at Research Center Jülich have developed new computer simulation models for studying the interaction of flagella with the surrounding fluid and of the interaction between bacteria in a colony. ESRs at the Technical University Denmark, the universities of Zürich, Lyon, and Rome work on feeding strategies of flagellates and chemo- and magneto taxis of flagellates and bacteria. In Würzburg and Paris, trypanosome and bacterial migration in different flow conditions and confinement are being studied. At IMEDEA (Mallorca), ESRs develop and test a state-of-the-art model for the dynamics of flagella and perform experiments to understand the interaction between flagellates and parasites.
PHYMOT ESRs located at the industrial partners Lyncee Tec (Lausanne) and Synoptics (Cambridge) and at the University of Basel have contributed to the development of several technological innovations and software implementations for studying microbial colonies and for antibiotic susceptibility testing. ESRs at Research Center Jülich have developed new computer simulation models for studying the interaction of flagella with the surrounding fluid and of the interaction between bacteria in a colony. ESRs at the Technical University Denmark, the universities of Zürich, Lyon, and Rome work on feeding strategies of flagellates and chemo- and magneto taxis of flagellates and bacteria. In Würzburg and Paris, trypanosome and bacterial migration in different flow conditions and confinement are being studied. At IMEDEA (Mallorca), ESRs develop and test a state-of-the-art model for the dynamics of flagella and perform experiments to understand the interaction between flagellates and parasites.