Audrey Beaussart
CNRS Researcher
Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire des Environnements Continentaux (LIEC)
Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Continental Environments
UMR 7360 CNRS - Université de Lorraine
15 avenue du Charmois
54500 Vandoeuvre-Lès-nancy
Engineer in Material Sciences, my research interests have progressed towards physical chemistry of natural surfaces, then biosurfaces. Initially, I have been interested in minerals and more specifically to the fundamental mechanisms that govern polymer adsorption on hydrophobic minerals. One of the main applications was to replace toxic compounds commonly used in the mining industry by polymers extracted from plants, such as starch. Then my research field has evolved towards life science, more precisely microbiology, to understand the interactions that govern microbial adhesion to abiotic and biotic surfaces. My main objective is to elucidate mechanisms and dynamics of reactions taking place at the interfaces. This implies to consider components naturally present in the systems, characterize their surface properties and their physico-chemical environment to determine the key parameters in the interactions. For that, I'm using and developing new tools of nanotechnology, in particular the atomic force microscopy (AFM), applicable to natural and biological surfaces (such as micro-organisms cell wall) and allowing to probe phenomena ranging from the population scale to the single-molecule.