Master Thesis Biophysics at EPFL

Master Thesis offer on Biophysics at EPFL, Switzerland (paid)

The Cell Dynamics and Fragmentation Laboratory is a newly established research group at EPFL led by Juan Manuel Garcia-Arcos, hosted at the unit of Pierre Gönczy. Our research aims to uncover how cells shed large biologically active fragments. This phenomenon occurs in cancer progression, immune cell behavior, and developmental processes, yet the underlying mechanical and molecular principles remain largely unexplored.
Objective: use advanced microscopy techniques to measure membrane tension, cytoskeletal dynamics, and organelle behaviour in living cells during fragmentation. This will be done mainly using fluorescence lifetime probes such as Flipper-TR. Students will be trained on fluorescence lifetime imaging (FLIM) and confocal microscopy and will extract quantitative measurements from microscopy image datasets. This internship is in collaboration with BIOP, the bioimaging platform.
A possible direction is also to work at the microfabrication facility at EPFL (CMi) to design and make microfluidic devices to mechanically challenge cancer cells.
Approaches: live-cell imaging on multiple platforms, optimisation of acquisition parameters, preparation of fluorescent probes and markers, quantitative analysis using Image

J/FIJI and Python, measurement of membrane tension, actin dynamics, and morphological changes.

Ideal for students in:

• Life Sciences
• Bioengineering
• Biophysics