DOMINO: Advancing Food Microbiome Science Across Europe

Published: Nov 19, 2024 by FME Lab

The DOMINO project is at the forefront of connecting microbiome science, food systems, and health in Europe. Recent activities highlight how DOMINO is driving innovation and fostering collaboration:

Living Labs: At a Brussels event hosted by Ferments du Futur and partners, DOMINO showcased how Living Labs bring together researchers, producers, regulators, and consumers. These labs explore fermented foods like legumes in France and water kefir in Ireland, uncovering knowledge gaps and emphasizing the importance of consumer feedback in food innovation.

Stakeholder Forum: DOMINO launched its Stakeholder Forum with a webinar by Dr. Magali Cordaillat-Simmons, focusing on regulatory science for microbiomes. This platform ensures DOMINO’s research aligns with societal needs, promoting open dialogue on fermented foods and microbiome advances.

DOMINO is animating food microbiome science by combining interdisciplinary research, consumer engagement, and cross-sector collaboration, driving Europe toward healthier, more sustainable food systems.

cFMD workshop in Trento

Last February 23-24th 2026, at University of Trento, a workshop was organized by the CIBIO (Nicola Segata’s lab) for #DominoEU partners. The workshop aimed at learning to query & analyse data from the Curated Food Microbiome Database (cFMD). Thanks to the very efficient and skilled teaching team (vitor Heidrich, Hrituraj Dey, Francesco aniscar, Sergio Andrés Castañeda Garzon) and for the incredible hospitality of Frederica Pinto and Nicola Segata.

From food spontaneous fermentations to food designed consortia

Our new article entitled “Microbiome metabolic modeling as a tool for innovation in fermented foods” has been published in in Current Opinion of Food Science¹.

Elham Karimi, Julien Tap, Marie-Christine Champomier-Vergès, Stéphane Chaillou. Microbiome metabolic modeling as a tool for innovation in fermented foods. Current Opinion of Food Science. 2025 ↩

The FME lab communicates about the links between the microbiome, nutrition and health.

On Thursday 27 November, the FME lab took part in the Food System Microbiomes Conference in Wageningen during the session dedicated to the connections between microbiomes, nutrition and health. The session was co-chaired by Stéphane Chaillou (INRAE, Micalis) and Prof. Christophe Courtin (KU Leuven), and provided an opportunity to showcase advances from two major European projects: DOMINO and HealthFerm.