DuPont Nutrition & Health Microbiome Venture announces third academic partnership
Building upon the recently announced partnership with the Center of Food and Fermentation Technologies (TFTAK) in March 2018, the DuPont Nutrition & Health Microbiome Venture continues to strengthen its capabilities in announcing the third strategic research and development partnership with INRA (French National Institute for Agricultural Research).
Building upon the recently announced partnership with the Center of Food and Fermentation Technologies (TFTAK) in March 2018, the DuPont Nutrition & Health Microbiome Venture continues to strengthen its capabilities in announcing the third strategic research and development partnership. The newly forged relationship with INRA (French National Institute for Agricultural Research), through both the Micalis Institute and MetaGenoPolis, a pre-industrial demonstrator, will be focused on deciphering the molecular mechanisms of action of DuPont’s probiotic strains through a functional metagenomics approach.
INRA has developed and validated a high-throughput screening (HTS) platform to test the effect of large DNA fragments in genomic or metagenomic libraries on intestinal epithelial cell lines modified with reporter gene technology. This allows the screening of genomic and metagenomic clones on various reporter systems targeting pathways involved in homeostasis, metabolism, immune control, as well as enteroendocrine cell activation.
“We are thrilled to partner with INRA MetaGenoPolis and Micalis Institute as DuPont continues to build its capabilities to lead microbiome innovation through strategic partnerships,” said Sebastien Guery, leader of the Microbiome Venture. “Following our partnerships with APC Cork to discover new strains for maternal and infant health and TFTAK in Tallinn, Estonia, to understand the ‘culturability’ of next-generation probiotics, we are nicely complementing our set of capabilities by adding the understanding of the DuPont Danisco probiotics’ mechanisms of action on human health at a molecular level.”
With its technical capabilities in functional genomics, INRA will be a strong partner with DuPont by defining the molecular mechanisms of action of DuPont Danisco probiotic strains. DuPont established the Microbiome Venture to accelerate microbiome science-based solution development through a combination of selected strategic partnerships with microbiome science leaders and internal investments.