Section: Partnerships and Cooperations

National Initiatives

National programmes

• ANR-Phycover: The overall objective of the PHYCOVER project (2014-2018) is to identify a modular wastewater treatment process for the production of biogas. The method combines three modules. First, a high-rate algal pond is dedicated to the treatment of municipal wastewater. Then, an anaerobic digester capable of co-digesting biomass products (and others organic matter resources) to significantly reduce biological and chemical contaminants while producing a sustainable energy as biogas is analysed. A final module transforms the residual carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus into high-value microalgae dedicated to aquaculture and green chemistry.

• ITE-OPALE: The goal of the Institut de la Transition Énergétique - OPALE project (2016-2019) is to increase the lipid content of microalgae by specific selection pressure. The project relies on the strain already selected during the Facteur 4 project, whose productivity was 4 times higher than the wild type. We expect to still increase strain performances up to 10 times the productivity of the wild type. This project was unexpectedly arrested by the funding agency on April 2019.

• ADEME Phytorecolt: The goal of this project (2017-2019) is to develop an automated and optimized procedure for microalgae harvesting. A project coordinated by H. Bonnefond.

• ANR-ICycle: This project (2016-2020) aims at understanding the communication pathways between the cell division cycle and the circadian clock, using mathematical modeling and control theory to construct and implement two coupled synthetic biological oscillators. Project coordinated by M. Chaves.

• ANR - Maximic: The goal of the project (2017-2021) is to design and implement control strategies in a bacterium for producing at maximal rate a high value product. It is coordinated by H. de Jong (IBIS Grenoble), and involves members of Biocore and McTao.

• Plan Cancer - Imodrez: The objective of this project (2018-2021) is to understand cancer drug response heterogeneity using tumor single-cell dynamics and developing mathematical models and computational approaches. A project coordinated by J. Roux (IRCAN) and funded by Inserm - Plan Cancer.

• SIGNALIFE: Biocore is part of this Labex (scientific cluster of excellence) whose objective is to build a network for innovation on Signal Transduction Pathways in life Sciences, and is hosted by the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis.

• UMT FIORIMED: FioriMed is a Mixed Technology Unit created in January 2015 to strengthen the production and dissemination of innovation to the benefit of ornamental horticulture. Horticultural greenhouses are seen as a "laboratory" for the actual implementation of agroecology concepts with the possibility of generic outcomes being transfered to other production systems. The main partners of UMT FioriMed are ASTREDHOR (National Institute of Horticulture) and the ISA Joint Research Unit of INRA-CNRS-Univ. Nice.

• EcoPhyto - CeraTIS Corse: “Territorial management of the Mediterranean fruit fly in Corsica by the Sterile Insect Technique” (2020-2022). This project is based on a pilot field experiment of sterile male releases and it integrates population dynamics and socio-economic approaches.

• EcoPhyto - INTERLUDE: “Territorial innovations to reduce phytoparmaceutical products for the sustainable production of vegetable crops” (2020-2022). BIOCORE members participate in a case study that focuses on the agroecological management of soil pests and pathogens in Provence.

Inria funding

• Inria Project Lab, Algae in silico: (2014-2019) The Algae in silico Inria Project Lab, funded by Inria and coordinated by O. Bernard, focuses on the expertise and knowledge of biologists, applied mathematicians and computer scientists to propose an innovative numerical model of microalgal culturing devices. The latest developments in metabolic modeling, hydrodynamic modeling and process control are joined to propose a new generation of advanced simulators in a realistic outdoor environment. The project gathers 5 Inria project teams and 3 external teams.

• Inria Project Lab, Cosy: (2017-...) This proposal aims at exploiting the potential of state-of-art biological modeling, control techniques, synthetic biology and experimental equipment to achieve a paradigm shift in control of microbial communities. We will investigate, design, build and apply an automated computer-driven feedback system for control of synthetic microbial communities, not just accounting for but rather leveraging population heterogeneity in the optimal accomplishment of a population-level task. The development of methodologies of general applicability will be driven by and applied to two different applications closely connected with real-world problems in the biomedical and biotechnological industry. The consortium is composed of the four Inria project-teams IBIS, BIOCORE, COMMANDS, VALSE, INBIO, as well as the external partners BIOP (Université Grenoble Alpes, including members of IBIS), MaIAge (INRA), and YoukLAB (TU Delft).

INRA funding

• MoGeR: “From knowledge to modeling: towards a user-friendly simulation tool to test crop resistance management scenarios in the Phoma-oilseed rape case study”, INRA Metaprogramme SMaCH, 2017–2019. This is a follow-up of the K-Masstec project, which focused on sustainable strategies for the deployment of genetic resistance in the field, based on molecular knowledge on avirulence genes.

• ABCD: INRA SPE is funding the project ABCD "Augmentative Biological Control; optimizing natural ennemies Deployment" (2017-2019) in which Biocore is a partner with INRA Sophia Antipolis.

• IMMUnE: INRA SPE is funding the project IMMUnE "Immunité et Modélisation Mathématique pour Unifier l’Epidémiologie" (2019-2021), headed by F. Hamelin (Agrocampus Ouest), in which BIOCORE is a partner.

Networks

• ModStatSAP: The objective of this INRA network is to federate researchers in applied mathematics and statistics and to promote mathematical and statistical modeling studies in crop and animal health. S. Touzeau is a member of the scientific committee.

• Seminar: BIOCORE organizes a regular seminar “Modeling and control of ecosystems” at the station zoologique of Villefranche-sur-Mer, at INRA-ISA or at Inria.