Post-doc position : computer modelling of 3D plant tissues

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INRAE presentation

The French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food, and Environment (INRAE) is a major player in research and innovation. It is a community of 12,000 people with 272 research, experimental research, and support units located in 18 regional centres throughout France. Internationally, INRAE is among the top research organisations in the agricultural and food sciences, plant and animal sciences, as well as in ecology and environmental science. It is the world’s leading research organisation specialising in agriculture, food and the environment. INRAE’s goal is to be a key player in the transitions necessary to address major global challenges. Faced with a growing world population, climate change, resource scarcity, and declining biodiversity, the Institute has a major role to play in building solutions and supporting the necessary acceleration of agricultural, food and environmental transitions.

 

Work environment, missions and activities

The Modelling and Digital Imaging team at the Institute Jean-Pierre Bourgin for Plant Sciences in INRAE Versailles conducts original researches in image processing, applied mathematics and computational modelling to decipher plant function, development, and morphogenesis. In addition to this human-sized, friendly working environment, you will enjoy the green, unique surroundings of the Palace of Versailles gardens in which our research center is located, at about 45 min from Paris by public transportation. 
This position is part of a project aiming at developing new concepts and tools for modelling the development of plant tissues and the generation of plant organ shapes, addressing the bottlenecks that currently hamper our capacity to model and understand these processes. The main goal of the post-doc project is to design, implement, and validate the core of a new, 3D image-based computational modeling formalism of plant cells and tissues. Previous work by the team already established the potential of the image-based approach to model plant cell division patterns1,2. The challenge is now to expand this modelling formalism into a broader perspective, allowing to investigate complex scenarios by combining multilevel processes such as cell division, growth, communication, gene expression, and mechanics. Both conceptual methodological developments and their biological applications will be valorized. 
 

References.

1. Moukhtar J, Trubuil A, Belcram K, Legland D, Khadir Z, Urbain A, Palauqui J-C and Andrey P (2019). Cell geometrydetermines symmetric and asymmetric division plane selection in Arabidopsis early embryos. PLoS ComputationalBiology, 15, e1006771.

2. E Laruelle, K Belcram, A Trubuil, JC Palauqui and P Andrey (2022). Large-scale analysis and computer modeling revealhidden regularities behind variability of cell division patterns in Arabidopsis thaliana embryogenesis. ELife, 11, e79224. 
 

Training and skills

You have a PhD or equivalent in computer science, computational physics, applied mathematics, or computational biology. You have a solid experience in programming with an objectoriented language such as C++ (preferred) or Java. Some background or experience in digitial image processing and analysis would be a plus. No biological background is required, but you are curious and appreciate to work within a strongly inter-disciplinary environment at the interface with biology. 
 

INRAE's life quality

By joining our teams, you benefit from (depending on the type of contract and its duration):

- up to 30 days of annual leave + 15 days "Reduction of Working Time" (for a full time);
- parenting support: CESU childcare, leisure services;
- skills development systems: training, career advise;
- social support: advice and listening, social assistance and loans;
- holiday and leisure services: holiday vouchers, accommodation at preferential rates;
- sports and cultural activities;
- collective catering.

How to apply

I send my CV and my motivation letter