News

The final conference of the Human Microbiome Action coordinated by Joël Doré, Emmanuelle Maguin and Mani Arumugam took place in Brussels at les Ateliers des Tanneurs on the 29th of February. A lot of very interesting talks summarizing the state of the art in Human microbiome research meanwhile paving the ground on policies for safeguarding public health.

The recent ‘Metabolomics and Fermented Foods’ seminar organized by the Netherland Metabolomic Centre and held at the Danone Nutricia Global Research & Innovation Center in Utrecht was a melting pot of groundbreaking ideas and discussions, delving deep into the intricate relationship between metabolomics, fermented foods, and gut health. Esteemed experts like Paul Cotter, Guus Roeselers, Barbara Koroušić Seljak, and others shared their invaluable insights, providing attendees with a comprehensive understanding of this dynamic field.

As part of the DOMINO project, 6 living labs will be set up in 6 different countries to interact with consumers and stakholders on the place of traditional and future fermented foods in a sustainable food system.

The first Valorial’Connection event of the year was held at Lamballe this 1st February. It gathered more than 50 academic and AgriFood industry partners on site and as many online. Stéphane was invited to give a talk¹ for presenting the EU DOMINO project and to talk, more specifically, on the role of data sciences in fermented foods area.

Halophilic and halotolerant bacteria are generally considered to live in natural environments such as see, although they can also be present in foods such as cheese and seafood. These salt-loving bacteria have occasionally been characterized in cheeses, and studies on their ecological and technological functions are still rare. In a previous study, we systematically characterized these micro-organisms in the rind of 13 traditional cheeses. We identified 35 halotolerant strains¹, 8 of which were assigned to the Halomonas genus on the basis of 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis.