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Pierre Renault
Research Director
Description
At the beginning of his carrier, Pierre developed pioneer researches on genetics and physiology of food bacteria, in particular lactic acid bacteria (LAB). It included the characterization of the first positive-regulator in G+ and lactic acid bacteria, and then the development of genetic engineering systems in LAB. He developed knowledge on metabolism of LAB, such as amino acid biosynthesis, sugar assimilation, flavor development, exopolysaccharide production, and gene regulation.
From 2009, he redirected part of his activities on human intestinal microorganisms that intimately interact with human physiology and may protect or favor metabolic disorders in conjunction of changes induced by diet, lifestyle and health. In this respect, it develops studies on a gut bacteria model species, Streptococcus salivarius. Furthermore, he participated to the development of metagenomic approaches to establish relationships between components of the human intestinal microbiome and metabolic disorders such as obesity and inflammatory bowel diseases. This includes the development of bioinformatic tools for data analysis generated by the New Generation Sequencers.
Currently, in the framework of a newly created team “Food Microbial Ecology” gathering skills in food microbial ecology, metagenomics and bioinformatics, he manages researches on microbial ecosystem construction and microbial interaction in food and their impact on food safety and quality with cutting edge approaches based on shotgun metagenomics.