NextGenPack is an alliance between INRA and the German technical centre Fraunhofer IVV. It offers companies who wish to develop active and/or intelligent sustainable packaging systems its combined scientific and technical skills ranging from the basic concept to manufacture at a semi-industrial scale.

The consumption of short-chain fructo-oligosaccharides (scFOS) by sows during gestation and lactation has a sustained and beneficial impact on the health of offspring. scFOS stimulate the development of immune functions and defences of their gut and enhance their response to a bacterial challenge.

Cadmium is a metallic element, traces of which are found in agricultural soils. Its accumulation in cultivated plants is the subject of increasing monitoring. Collaborative efforts by INRA and Arvalis have revealed the potential impact of straw length on the accumulation of cadmium in durum wheat grain.

Efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the agriculture and forestry sectors could lead to increased food prices—but new research identifies strategies that could help mitigate climate change while avoiding steep hikes in food prices.

Climate policies that target agriculture and forests could lead to increased food prices, but reducing deforestation and increasing soil carbon sequestration in agriculture could significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions while avoiding risk to food security, according to new research published in the journal Environmental Research Letters.  

Obtaining extensive knowledge about human intestinal microbiota and assessing its impact on health requires a standardisation of the metagenomic* methods used. As part of a vast international project, researchers from INRA and the CEA¹ have revealed the major impact of DNA extraction on the evaluation of the microbial composition of human stool samples. They propose an optimised protocol as part of a series of standardised procedures for processing samples, from their collection to the bioinformatic analysis of the data. Highly efficient, transferable and automatable, this protocol will contribute to the production of quality data which permits robust comparisons to be made. Their results are published in the 02 October 2017 edition of Nature Biotechnology.

A study published in the journal Science by a research team from Gustave Roussy, INSERM, INRA, AP-HP, IHU Méditerranée Infections* and Paris-Sud University shows that prescribed antibiotics impair the efficacy of immunotherapy in cancer patients. It is important to consider that more than 20% of patients living with cancer receive antibiotics. The authors explored patients’ gut microbiota composition by metagenomic analysis and demonstrated that the bacterium Akkermansia muciniphila was associated with a better clinical response to anti-PD-1 antibody immunotherapy. Moreover, oral administration of this bacterium to mice with an unfavorable microbiota restored the anti-tumor activity of the immunotherapy. This paper is published online by the journal Science on Thursday, 2 November 2017.

As part of an international consortium, INRA researchers, in partnership with the CEA and INRIA¹, have sequenced one of the first genomes of a moth from the superfamily Noctuoidea: Spodoptera frugiperda, or armyworm. This crop pest – until now only known on the American continent – has become invasive in Africa since 2016. Published in Scientific Reports on 25 September 2017, this study opens up perspectives for new methods of biological control and a better understanding of the mechanisms involved in the appearance of pesticide resistance.

With its technological systems adapted to all types of cheese production and benefiting from level 2 containment, the Aurillac cheese facility can offer a broad range of equipment and services for industry, such as challenge tests in model cheeses to evaluate the efficiency of bioprotection ferments or the development of new cheese products.

Poultry Quality Evaluation: Quality Attributes and Consumer Values provides a new reference source that covers these aspects with the same scientific authority as texts on traditional poultry meat quality values.