David Lacoste

CNRS Researcher · Laboratoire Gulliver, ESPCI Paris

David Lacoste

Theoretical physicist working on the statistical physics of living matter and on the emergence of life.

My research spans stochastic thermodynamics, the origin of life, chemical reaction networks and autocatalysis, and the growth and fluctuations of cell populations. I work at Laboratoire Gulliver, a joint CNRS–ESPCI unit in Paris.

Internship & PhD openings Google Scholar ORCID Twitter / X CV (PDF)

01Research themes

All publications
Current

Origin of life

How self-replicating molecules survive, select and organise: transient compartments, autocatalytic networks and the emergence of homochirality.

Transient compartmentalization · Autocatalysis · Homochirality
 Current

Fluctuations and growth in cell populations

Lineage statistics, bacterial response to antibiotics, and growth strategies such as phenotypic switching in uncertain environments.

Antibiotics · Lineage trees · Bet hedging
 Current

Limits to economic growth

Tools from reaction networks and stochastic dynamics applied to the economy: how debt-financed growth locks in carbon emissions, and what constrains growth in a finite world.

Debt and carbon lock-in · Growth vs. risk · Economic principles in biology

Stochastic thermodynamics

Fluctuation relations, thermodynamic inference and the trade-offs between power, precision and efficiency in small out-of-equilibrium systems.

Trade-offs · Inference · Fluctuation theorems · Molecular motors

Soft biological matter

Non-equilibrium self-assembly of actin filaments and microtubules, and the physics of lipid membranes: active membranes with ion pumps, membranes in electric fields, coupling to the cytoskeleton and protein mobility.

Biofilaments · Active membranes · Electrokinetics · Protein diffusion

Soft matter and multiple light scattering

Magnetic colloids, liquid crystals, and the optics of diffuse light in magneto-optical and chiral media, including the photonic Hall effect.

Colloids · Liquid crystals · Magneto-optics

02What's new

More on Twitter / X
  • Sep 2026

    Workshop on the origin of life and chemical reaction networks, Munich.

    Workshop page

  • May 2026

    Workshop on patterning principles in biophysics, Beg Rohu.

    Workshop page

  • 2026

    Compositional memory matters for early molecular systems, PNAS.

    Press release from the University of Tokyo

  • Nov 2024

    Armand Despons defended his PhD, “Physical aspects of autocatalysis”.

Internship and PhD openings

Internship and PhD projects are available, with funding through the Ecole Doctorale EDPIF.

Please contact me directly for details at david.lacoste@espci.fr.

03Recent publications

All publications

04Former group members in academia

PhD students

Postdocs