FRANCE – Lallemand Animal Nutrition recently reaffirmed its commitment to advancing animal health and nutrition by renewing its 30-year partnership with the French research institution INRAE (National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food, and Environment).
The renewal was formalized by signing an Associated Partnership Laboratory (APL) agreement, continuing the collaboration that began in 1992.
This partnership, facilitated by the MEDiS Research Unit at INRAE’s Clermont-Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Research Center, focuses on innovative microbial solutions in ruminant nutrition and health.
The new five-year APL agreement will allow both entities to leverage their combined material and human resources to explore and develop new technologies and research methodologies.
The primary objective of the APL is to study the digestive microbiota of ruminants and its interaction with microbial solutions developed by Lallemand.
This includes characterizing the modes of action of these solutions, advancing technological developments, and isolating and screening new microbial solutions.
These efforts are critical in addressing contemporary challenges such as environmental changes, consumer concerns about sustainability, and food safety in ruminant production.
Frédérique Chaucheyras-Durand, Research Manager for Lallemand Animal Nutrition and leader of the APL highlighted the collaboration’s significant achievements.
“This new contract reinforces the collaboration between UMR MEDiS and Lallemand that started in 1992 and has led to significant contributions for both entities with more than 40 international peer-reviewed scientific publications, numerous communications at national and international conferences, and one patent,” she stated.
She added that the project has a team of four full-time researchers and technicians based at INRAE, striving for ruminant microbiota research.
“This allows us to conduct research from the lab to the field and to access innovative tools such as molecular and OMICS approaches to decipher microbial interactions from genes to metabolites, as well as advanced in vitro digestion and fermentation models to mimic and better understand what happens in the digestive tract of ruminants,” she commented.
Evelyne Forano, Research Director at MEDiS and long-time collaborator with Lallemand expressed her enthusiasm for the renewed partnership.
“I am pleased that the long-standing collaboration between LAN and MEDIS continues with the new APL agreement. The many years of joint work have led to numerous innovative scientific results and identifying microbial markers of interest in ruminant nutrition. The international scientific community has highly cited many of our shared publications.”
Additionally, several Ph.D. students and other interns at different levels have been co-supervised as part of the collaboration.
“The success of this long-standing collaboration between INRAE and Lallemand demonstrates the value of public-private partnerships in advancing scientific research and developing new solutions for sustainable animal production.”
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