With a view to preserving consumer health, INRA has decided to set up a Center that will be covering all the fields ranging from microbe cells to biological procedures for food processing, including human digestive tube flora. MICALIS, which is located in the south of the Ile-de-France region that provides invaluable assets for the success of the Center as the INRA centers in Versailles-Grignon and Jouy-en-Josas are located there, will be integrating the Ile-de-France landscape featuring microbiological research of the human food chain, in synergy with AFSSA and ENVA (Maison-Alfort) laboratories and supplementing the fundamental microbiology centers (in Plateau de Saclay and Montagne Ste Geneviève) and the Paris Center focusing on the microorganisms to blame for infectious diseases in humans (Pasteur Institute, Cochin, Necker).
MICALIS has twelve research units, which are either stand alone or partnered with a school of higher education or another research organization. Some 110 researchers, engineers and teacher-researchers work out of the Center. From 2001 to 2004 the microbiologists at these facilities published some 500 scientific papers in top international journals. During those years they filed 23 patents that went into effect in late 2004, including 6 from 2001 to 2004 and 14 now exploited by license contracts.
MICALIS also has original biological resources. The Jouy-en-Josas INRA Center hosts one of world's rarest animal houses where rodents can be bred without being contaminated by any environmental bacteria or colonized by identified flora. This means that scientists can track the evolution of the microorganisms ingested by the rodents over time and assess their impact on the animals' physiology. INRA maintains four collections of microorganisms that are critical for ongoing research on food microbiology (lactic acid bacteria, ripening flora, high risk microorganisms for human food, and so on). INRA also has a collection of intestinal bacteria and a metagenomic bank of human intestinal flora.
The research that will be conducted at the Center will help improve food and the preservation of human health. Scientists will be working on identifying microorganisms with beneficial properties for human health and characterizing their interactions with humans and the flora in human intestine, with a view to preventive nutrition and the integrated knowledge of human nutrition physiology. The research will also be tackling the prevention of microbiological risks in food through identifying virulence markers, understanding the emergence of the pathogen, and grasping the persistence modes of dangerous microorganisms during food processing and distribution.
