Supercoiling@Sète

The 7th edition of the workshop « Bacterial DNA Supercoilng @ Sète » will take place from 13 to 15 November 2025 !

Living cells have to face the challenge of storing a large quantity of information encoded into DNA molecules. At the same time, this information needs to be accessible for gene expression. In bacteria, DNA is stored as ring molecules displaying supercoiling, leading to a peculiar topology and spatial organisation. Negative supercoiling is essential for DNA compaction in cells and is critical to many essential biological processes such as replication and transcription, and is finely mediated by topoisomerases. However, it remains a challenge to understand how such topology of DNA influences gene expression.

We gather since 2019 a threefold community to tackle these questions: (i) theoretical polymer physicists, (ii) experimental physicists of the mechanics of DNA and (iii) microbiologists. The aim is to to foster interdisciplinary discussions and collaborations between different internationally renowned French Institutes (e.g., Collège de France, ENS Lyon & Paris, Institut Curie, Univ.Grenoble, Univ. Paul Sabatier, Toulouse) as well as targeted foreign Institution (e.g., KULeuven in Belgium and University of Edimburgh in the UK).

We keep the format intentionally small and informal with 30 researcher, postdocs and PhD students to offer a collaborative, targeted and efficient space of discussion and collaboration.