A seed meeting between INRAE Micalis Institute and Imperial College London

Published: Oct 3, 2025 by FME Lab

Last week on October 3rd, scientists from Imperial College London (ICL) and from INRAE Micalis Institute were hosted by the French embassy in London for a seed meeting around synthetic biology and synthetic microbial ecology as scientific strategies for biotechnology and food production. A special thanks to the organizer: Ludovic Drouin (French Embassy), Young-Kyoung Park (Micalis) and Rodriguo Ledesma-Amaro (ICL). Our several groups with complementary research discussed about perspectives of future collaborations on the field together with Ferment du Futur or Bezos Centre.

A special thanks

Food Microbial Ecology team (Stéphane Chaillou, Julien Tap, Marie Champomier-Vergès), Cosynus team (Young-Kyoung Park, Tritan Rossignol) from Micalis, Ferments du Futur (Damien Paineau), ICL Bioengineering department (Rodriguo Ledesma-Amaro, José Jimenz), ICL synthetic Biology department (Geoff Baldwin), ICL nutrition department (Gary Frost) and Bezos centre for sustainable proteins (Yvonne McMeel).

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.

Understanding How Fermented Foods Shape Health Insights From a New PIMENTO Review

A new scoping review published in Frontiers in Nutrition¹ as part of the COST Action PIMENTO initiative provides a comprehensive assessment of what is currently known about the health effects of fermented foods in specific human populations. This work reflects a substantial collective effort. We conducted an extensive and rigorous screening of the scientific literature, reviewing and selecting studies across many categories of fermented foods and health outcomes.

Humblot Christèle, Alvanoudi Panagiota, Alves Emilia, Assunçao Ricardo, Belovic Miona, Bulmus-Tuccar Tugce, Chassard Christophe, Derrien Muriel, Karagöz Mustafa Fevzi, Karakaya Sibel, Laranjo Marta, Mantzouridou Fani Th, Rosado Catarina, Pracer Smilja, Saar Helen, Tap Julien, Treven Primož, Vergères Guy, Pertziger Eugenia, Savary-Auzeloux Isabelle, A scoping review of the health effects of fermented foods in specific human populations and their potential role in precision nutrition: current knowledge and gaps. Frontiers in Nutrition. 2025 doi:10.3389/fnut.2025.1650633 ↩