"I tend to believe that scientific knowledge has fractal properties; that no matter what we learn, what remains, however small it may seem, is just as infinitely complex as the whole was to begin with. This, I think, is the secret of the Universe."

— Isaac Asimov I, Asimov: A Memoir – 1995

Artistic visualization of the studied system

Fun fact: don't be fooled by the artistic vision. These tiny motors work at over 100 steps per second, which would correspond to 360 km/h if we, as humans, walked at 100 steps per second.

The Research

Cells have internal highways called microtubules. Tiny motor proteins walk along them at incredible speeds — the equivalent of 200 km/h. I built kinetic Monte Carlo simulations to understand how this walking affects the highway's stability, in collaboration with CEA Grenoble biologists.

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Microtubules are structural filaments made of tubulin protein units arranged in a cylindrical lattice. Motor proteins (kinesin, dynein) transport cargo along these tracks at the nanometer scale.

My research focused on the mechanical coupling between motor stepping and the lattice. I analyzed the energy landscape of tubulin-tubulin interactions and how transient motor binding affects local stability.

The key insight: weak destabilization creates mobile vacancies that diffuse through the lattice — leading either to fracture (without free tubulin) or localized repair. This work bridged theoretical physics with experimental biology.

Explore Further

Read the Thesis

Full manuscript (HAL archives)

PRX Life Article

Molecular Motors Enhance Microtubule Lattice Plasticity

Simulation Code

kMC_MoTub — Python kinetic Monte Carlo framework

MIT
Coming Soon 2026

A methodology paper on efficient kinetic Monte Carlo simulations

Documenting a significant performance breakthrough achieved during this research