Questioning the Universe until it answers, which sometimes happens…
Francois El-Daher
I’m a physicist studying how living systems adapt to critical events — severe stress, injury, resource deprivation.
Postdoctoral researcher, University of Edinburgh · Research engineer, CNRS
My work sits between physics, quantitative imaging and experimental biology. In zebrafish, I showed that microglia repair the injured brain by pulling on neighbouring tissue. In yeast, I study how single cells “decide” how to respond when their environment turns hostile — from protein condensation to chemoreception in fluctuating environments. Both rely on imaging and modelling methods I’ve been building for over twenty years, from two-photon FRAP and FLIM to physics-informed deep learning.
Research
- How cells decide under stress How single yeast cells sense a hostile environment and choose a response — from protein condensation to chemoreception in fluctuating environments.
- Mechanics of brain repair Microglia close brain wounds not by driving neurogenesis, but by pulling on neighbouring cells to contract the injured tissue.
- Measuring physics inside cells Quantitative imaging methods that turn microscopy into measurement — from two-photon FRAP and FLIM to physics-informed deep learning.
Selected publications
- Microglia are essential for tissue contraction in wound closure after brain injury in zebrafish larvae Life Science Alliance · 2024
- Controlled Semi-Automated Laser-Induced Injuries for Studying Spinal Cord Regeneration in Zebrafish Larvae Journal of Visualized Experiments · 2021
- Neural circuit reorganisation after spinal cord injury in zebrafish Current Opinion in Genetics & Development · 2020
- The major β-catenin/E-cadherin junctional binding site is a primary molecular mechano-transductor of differentiation in vivo eLife · 2018
- Severe osmotic compression triggers a slowdown of intracellular signaling, which can be explained by molecular crowding Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA · 2013
- A two-photon FRAP analysis of the cytoskeleton dynamics in the microvilli of intestinal cells Biophysical Journal · 2005
Latest from the blog
- Networking on the Network: a guide to professional skills for PhD students
Phil Agre's classic essay on how researchers build and use a professional network, reproduced with attribution.
- Implementing MATLAB's psf2otf in Python: why and how
A drop-in NumPy equivalent of MATLAB's psf2otf — and why the padding and circular shift matter for deconvolution.
- Why are there moving lights at the bottom of swimming pools?
The bright, shifting network on the floor of a pool is the Transport of Intensity effect — and the same physics lets us weigh the inside of living cells.