Section: Application Domains

Dynamics of telomeres

A telomere is a region of repetitive and non coding nucleotide sequences at each end of a chromosome. The telomeres are disposable buffers at the ends of chromosomes which are truncated during cell division; so that, over time, due to each cell division, the telomere ends become shorter. By this way, they are markers of aging. Mathematical modeling of telomere dynamics is recent [36], [107], [91], [49]. Trough a collaboration with Pr A. Benetos, geriatrician at CHU Nancy, and some members of Inria team TOSCA, we want to work in three connected directions: (1) propose a dynamical model for the lengths of telomeres and study its mathematical properties (long term behavior of the distribution of lengths, quasi-stationarity, etc); (2) use these properties to develop new statistical methods for estimating the various parameters; and (3) find and use a suitable methodology for the analysis of the available data (Pr Benetos) for instance for the study of the length distribution for a subject and its evolution.