Bringing synthetic Ecology in the field of food microbiology

Published: Oct 9, 2023 by FME Lab

The 18th national congress for the French Microbiology Society (SFM) was held in Rennes the 4-6th October. Stéphane was welcome as a guest and gave an introduction conference in the session dedicated to “microbes and functional foods”. He delivered a 25 min talk untitled ”Design of microbial solutions for sustainable and healthy fermented food: perspectives & challenges”.

Key highlights from Stephane’s lecture included:

A diversity of microbial solutions (i.e. microbial consortia)
Strategies for design & experimental bottlenecks
A need for food ‘omics’ databases & ecological network modelling tools
A challenge for implementing health benefits in the design

A specific focus was also given during the presentation to explain the framework of national and European projects running in this field. Stephane’s presentation can be downloaded here.

HoloGen symposium on microbial meta-community modeling

On October 21, 2026, Julien Tap participated as an invited speaker in the Microbial Meta-Community Modeling symposium, organized by Karoline Faust at the Rega Institute, KU Leuven, Belgium, as part of the HoloGen doctoral network retreat.

Fermented foods at the Fête de la science Paris-Saclay 2026

On October 3–4, 2026, Stéphane Chaillou and Alice Lima took part in the Village des sciences at ENS Paris-Saclay for the Fête de la science, France’s annual science festival. This year’s theme, “Saveurs savantes”, invited visitors to explore the science behind food and flavour.

From “synthetic” to defined microbial communities for clearer terminology

Stéphane Chaillou participated in a joint reflection with a group of international researchers, coordinated by the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT), on the terminology used to describe certain microbial communities. The collective of experts proposes replacing the term “synthetic community” (or SynCom), sometimes perceived negatively, with “Defined Microbial Community”.