Pascal MARTIN

ACADEMIC CURRICULUM: - 1989 to 1993: undergraduate studies in both Physics and Chemistry at the Ecole Supérieure de Physique et Chimie Industrielle de la ville de Paris (ESPCI Paris, France). - 1993: Master degree in soft-matter physics. - 1993-1994: "scientifique du contingent" (military service). Laboratoire Physico-Chimie Curie (PCC), Institut Curie, Paris, France. - 1994-1997: PhD in Physics from Université Pierre et Marie Curie (UPMC, now called Sorbonne Université, Paris, France). Dewetting of thin liquid films squeezed between a rigid plate and an elastomer. The PhD was funded by the Michelin tyre company and performed under the supervision of Prof Françoise Brochard-Wyart (PCC, Institut Curie, Paris). - 1997-2000: postdoc under the supervision of Prof Jim Hudspeth (Laboratory of Sensory Neuroscience, the Rockefeller University, New York, USA). Active mechanical properties of hair cells, the sensor and amplifiers of the inner ear. - 2000-present: CNRS researcher and principal inverstigator. Hair-cell biophysics and acto-myosin molecular systems (PCC, Institut Curie, Paris, France). RESEARCH SUMMARY: Pascal Martin has developed micromechanical tools to study the active (tension, spontaneous oscillations) and passive (stiffness, friction) mechanical properties of the hair bundle--the mechanosensory antenna of the hair cells in the vertebrate inner ear. In close collaboration with theorists, he has combined experiments and physical models to study the various regimes of active hair-bundle motility as well as the effects of intrinsic noise, friction, and elastic coupling on hair-bundle mechanosensitivity. In parallel, he has developed minimal molecular systems comprising purified myosin molecular motors and actin filaments, demonstrating that spontaneous mechanical oscillations and wave-like beating can emerge from from dynamic instabilities in motor-filament systems. A similar biomimetic approach was also developed to study active transport and positioning of colloidal particles by molecular motors in antiparallel filament networks .