Cv

Audrey Cochard, 28 years old, was a Ph.D. student under the direction of Zoher Gueroui of the Department of Chemistry of the ENS Paris, and of Dominique Weil of the Institute of Biology Paris-Seine of Sorbonne University. Her Ph.D. project concerned biomolecular condensates, which are membraneless organelles taking part in the intracellular organization. Because of the biochemical complexity of endogenous condensates, reconstitution approaches in cells of artificial condensates with controlled composition are required. In this article published in EMBO Journal, Audrey Cochard and her collaborators have developed a method to functionalize artificial condensates in cells with molecular motors. They first showed the possibility of controlling the localization of condensates nucleation, either at the cell periphery or at the centrosome, depending on the molecular motor. This system then allowed them to modify the localization of a target RNA, heterologously expressed or endogenous, by recruiting it specifically in the artificial condensates. This method opens multiple possibilities for the study of RNA subcellular localization importance.
Audrey is now a postdoctoral researcher in the Biomedical Microsystems laboratory at the Institute of Industrial Science in the University of Tokyo in Japan.