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Prof.François KÉPÈS(Institute of Systems and Synthetic Biology, Genopole, UEVE, CNRS)
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Europe/Paris
Amphithéâtre Léon Motchane (IHES)
Amphithéâtre Léon Motchane
IHES
Le Bois-Marie
35, route de Chartres
91440 Bures-sur-Yvette
Description
The substrate for heredity, DNA, is chemically rather inert. However, it bears one of the elements of information that specify the form of the organism. How can a form be specified, starting from DNA ? Recent observations indicate that the dynamics of transcription -- the process that decodes the hereditary information -- can imprint forms of a certain topological class onto DNA. This topology allows both to optimize transcription and to facilitate the concerted change of the transcriptional status in response to environmental modifications. To the best of our knowledge, this morphogenetic event is first on the path from DNA to organism. It inspires new rules to optimize networks of transcriptional interactions 'à la manière de' synthetic biology. The latter new interdisciplinary domain will be briefly presented.