Vittore Scolari, PhD

Researcher, Genome functions in space and time, Institut Curie, Paris, France

• mail: vittore.scolari@gmail.com

• github: https://github.com/scovit

• ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3490-0579

• phone: +33 (0) 6 52 74 45 27

One of the challenges in understanding living matter is that many energy-dependent processes compete with thermal agitation to keep their organization away from relaxed configurations. This is particularly true for chromosomes inside cells, where unlike synthetic polymers, the energy-dependent nature of various genomic processes counteracts entropy. As a result, traditional models of equilibrium physics are inherently inappropriate to represent genome dynamics, calling for an out-of-equilibrium approach. In this context, I investigate mechanistic models of:

(i) the way biological processes shape the Gibbs entropy of chromosomes

(ii) the fundamental implications this has on control and reliability of these processes.

In other words, how and why active dynamic processes inside the nucleus shape the genome in space and time.

My personal approach is theoretical, but I believe that as much as theory can drive production of new experimental data, new data often stem in the creation of original theories. For this reason, since the start of my PhD in Physics, I have always been closely collaborating with biologists. I did my first postdoc at Institut Pasteur as a physicist fellow embedded in a genomics lab. Now, I am part of a quantitative microscopy lab at Institut Curie. While making first-principle models as a physicist is my core activity, I also have advanced experience in analysing both sequencing and imaging data.