DOMINO Workshop on genome-scale modelling. How to build innovative and forward-looking methodologies in the field of fermented foods

Published: Jun 6, 2024 by FME Lab

The last three days, from Monday 24th to Wednesday 26th of June, INRAE (MaiAge & MICALIS) teams organised a workshop on microbial community-level genome scale modelling (GSM) for consortia design.

This activity was organized by INRAE scientist from #DominoEU WP3 (dedicated to open food microbiome database and tools) for WP4 (Microbial consortia design for plan-based fermented foods) partners. It was also the opportunity to align methodologies developed in French ANR #Metasimfood project to those being developed in #DominoEU project.

A special thanks to Elham Karimi from Metasimfood project and her skill in the field which allowed a strong capacity building in Domino. Many thanks also to Valentin Loux for setting the bioinformatic framework of the Migale computational cluster.

Thanks to Katie Fala from Teagasc and Vitor Heidrich from University of Trento for ensuring, despite the rush, that both genomic and metagenomic data were released and annotated properly for the training. Results are very promising and GSM will go on in the coming weeks for further tuning of the models. Congratulations to the participants Katie Fala, Ilario ferrocino, Xenia Vasquez, Hindrek Teder, Vincent Hervé, Ayité Hadama, Julien Tap and Bastien Renard. Luckily, weather was perfect for casual lunch near the workshop room and for a charming terrace diner in Versailles at the restaurant “La Salamandre” on Tuesday.

Focus on Microbial Ecology Modelling at the NEM days meeting in Rennes

The French NEM (Nutrition & Microbial Ecosystems) network hold its annual meeting this last two days (5th – 6th of May) in Rennes. Julien Tap, researcher from the FME lab presented the first results of his Ferment du Future SynthPlex project and how Engineering food microbial consortia can be performed using microfermentors to reveal strain epistasis. With the Support of Holoflux and Digit-Bio INRAE Metaprogram, He also co-organized with Guillaume Gautreau from the MaIAge Unit a specific workshop on modelling of microbial ecosystems.

Lovely second annual meeting of DOMINO project in Cork, Ireland

The DOMINO project held its second annual meeting from 26 to 28 March in the picturesque city of Cork, Ireland. It was an intense and warm moment thanks to the efficient and very friendly organisation of Teagasc and its incredible team coordinated by Orla O’Sullivan and John Kenny.

Health promoting effects of Fermented Foods was the highlight at 2nd Forum on Fermented Foods in Malaga

#DominoEU researchers participated significantly to this amazing conference organised by the COST Pimento. Paul Cotter, Orla O’Sullivan, Jekaterina Kansatseva, Bastien Renard, Isabelle Savary-Auzeloux, Luca Cocolin, Kelly Rantsiou and Tanja Kostic gave talks.