focus sur - GIS Biotechnologies Vertes

Newsletter
No. 17 – December 2015
www.gisbiotechnologiesvertes.com
"Agriculture-Innovation
2025" Report
www.gisbiotechnologiesvertes.com
Contents
P. 1 "Agriculture – Innovation 2025"
Report
P. 2 Report on the 2015 Thematic
Development Committees
P. 4 Scientific workshop: control of
recombination and reproduction for
crop variety improvement
P. 4 ANR (French National Research
Agency): first results of the 2015
generic call for proposals and
publication of the 2016 action plan
P. 5 H2020 programme for 2016-2017
On Thursday, 22 October 2015, Jean-Marc Bournigal,
President and CEO of IRSTEA, François Houllier, President
and CEO of INRA, Philippe Lecouvey, Director of ACTA,
and Pierre Pringuet, President of AgroParisTech,
presented the findings of the "Agriculture – Innovation
2025" programme to Stéphane Le Foll, Thierry Mandon
and Axelle Lemaire.
GIS BV had the opportunity to contribute to the
development of the proposals selected by the programme.
Three of the 30 topics proposed are aimed in particular at
the scientific community brought together at GIS BV:
"Developing the animal and plant genomic selection",
"Ensuring new biotechnologies are mastered" and
"Developing procedures and protocols to foster genetic
progress and its adoption".
Read more...
P. 6 News and Events
P. 6 Meeting with the INRA teams in ClermontFerrand
P. 7 DeméTeR-Rapsodyn goes online
P. 7 Feedback on the Saclay Plant’Innov’
P. 8 Agenda
GIS Biotechnologies Vertes
28 Rue du Docteur Finlay
75015 Paris - France
Tel: +33 (0)1 42 75 95 87
Fax: + 33(0)1 45 75 63 45
Editors:
Hélène Lucas, Pascual Perez
Sub-Editors:
Romain Piovan, Maxime Szambien
Page |2
Of the practical actions put forward, we can select the
following:
-
Developing
and
implementing genomic
selection programmes across a wider range of
animal and plant species, while ensuring
appropriate selection targets with respect to
sustainability requirements. These programmes
will involve the private partners conducting
this selection and bringing the products to
market.
-
Asserting, within a European context, an
international ambition in the field of genomic
selection.
-
Strengthening key infrastructures to set a new
scale and increase the number of elements
likely to be taken into consideration (genetic
resources, high-throughput genotyping and
phenotyping, experimental devices to be used
in the field).
-
Creating data centres, key infrastructure for
data storage, maintenance, sharing and
processing.
-
Supporting a generic research programme on
new biotechnologies.
-
Creating a national research platform that is
distributed for the implementation and
adaptation of new biotechnologies.
-
Creating
a
infrastructure.
-
Supporting research programmes aimed at
incorporating into cultivation systems the
innovations derived from plant biotechnologies.
field-based
phenotyping
Furthermore, the programme endeavoured to build ties
between projects in the fields of genetics and
biotechnologies, digital technology, robotics and
biocontrol, thereby fostering the implementation of
plant biotechnologies. In the light of these proposals,
GIS BV was requested by the programme to revise its
roadmap in 2016 and to prepare a new wave of "Future
Investment" projects.
Find out more about the Agriculture – Innovation 2015
plan and view the Minister's speech:
http://agriculture.gouv.fr/agriculture-innovation-2025des-orientations-pour-une-agriculture-innovante-etdurable
Download the Agriculture – Innovation 2025 report:
http://agriculture.gouv.fr/sites/minagri/files/rapportagriculture-innovation2025.pdf
Report on the 2015 Thematic Development
Committees
In 2015, the third wave of Thematic Development
Committees (TDC) of GIS BV was held. Accordingly, four
committees were held between May and June. In total,
they brought together 80 participants from among the
public and private members of GIS BV, of which 18
contributed to the events by presenting research
projects focusing on the topics identified as priority
areas for the French plant biology research community.
We would like to thank both the organisers and
participants of these events, who bring life to the GIS
community every year.
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Biocomputing
Management
and
Data
The "Biocomputing and Data Management" Thematic
Development Committee was held on 18 June 2015 in
Paris and focused on "Applicability and outlook of Big
Data for data management, processing and
analysis". Coordinated by Nathalie Rivière (Biogemma)
and Johann Joets (INRA), this committee presented the
challenges related to the mass accumulation of
biological data and considered the contribution and
applicability of Big Data technologies in the publicprivate community of GIS BV. Several cloud
infrastructure projects have been presented, together
with national and international projects for the
management and storage of big data. The following
points were discussed collectively: the means and level
of data pooling within the scientific community,
together with the securing, transferability and sharing
of data. The private members of GIS BV expressed their
interest in using the cloud, specifying that such use
should be covered in discussions to determine the
specifics of its implementation. Discussions must be
conducted on setting up a participative and suitable
economic model to facilitate the development of
collaborative projects generating big data, and to set
aside substantial funding related to the use of these
high-throughput tools.
Biotic Interactions
On 23 April 2015, the "Biotic Interactions" Thematic
Development Committee was held. Coordinated by
Xavier Pinochet (Terres Inovia) and Susana Rivas
(INRA), the committee focused on the following subject:
"Evolutions and adaptations of plants and related
microorganisms". Six research projects labelled by GIS
BV regarding the functioning of microbial effectors, the
mechanisms of microorganisms to adapt to host plants,
and genetic and functional changes in plantmicroorganism associations were presented. Several
lines of research were discussed. The need for the
community to have consistent and reusable databases
was emphasised, together with the importance of
having strong structural annotations. Participants
mentioned the need to implement selection strategies to
ensure sustainable multi-stress resistance, in particular
for major crops, and to develop selection programmes
suited to associations and symbioses. Lastly, proposals
were made regarding the development of joint selection
and biocontrol approaches.
Methods for Improving Abiotic
Interactions and Plants
In 2015, the organisers of the Thematic Development
Committees "Methods for Improving Plants", Mathilde
Causse (INRA) and Olivier Lucas (RAGT) and "Abiotic
Interactions", Alain Gojon (INRA) and Sébastien Praud
(Biogemma), wanted exceptionally to combine their
subject areas in order to explore the "Methods of
selection for adaptation to abiotic stresses", and in
particular to address the contribution of phenotyping
and of climate characterisation. The coupling of these
two committees helped to broaden the scope of
discussions on these issues, and to plan for the
development of practical tools that could be used in
selection
regarding
aspects
associated
with
phenotyping. Represented during the event, the CEA
Tech is positioned as a privileged partner for the publicprivate community of the GIS BV regarding these issues.
The first avenues for developing tools aimed at the
phenotypic characterisation of plants at multiple levels
were presented. The participants expressed their desire
for GIS BV to be a dynamic site where proposals on
these subjects can be made, including the sharing of
costs related to the development of these technologies.
Discussions should be conducted in conjunction with
developments to the PHENOME infrastructure. Lastly,
the community discussed the need to develop ideotypes
to limit the stagnation of yields (as observed currently),
in particular by defining targets for multifactorial
ideotypes and by using modelling.
Page |4
Scientific workshop: control of recombination
and
reproduction
for
crop
variety
improvement
GIS BV, the "Biology and Plant
Improvement"
(BAP)
department of INRA and the
"Biology
of
plants
and
Biotechnologies"
(GT4)
working group of the AllEnvi
Alliance organised a scientific
workshop in Paris on 22 June
2015 focused on the "control of
recombination
and
reproduction
for
varietal
innovation" (link). The event
was organised in two sessions,
dedicated respectively to i) meiosis control and meiotic
recombination and ii) sex determination, the
inflorescence structure and the development of fruit.
The event brought together 45 participants around the
experts on these subject areas and gave rise to a
discussion regarding the use of this knowledge on
varietal improvement and the opportunities to
strengthen the French public-private partnership.
During a focus session organised following the
workshop, three main points were discussed: i)
determination and inflorescence, ii) recombination and
iii) apomixis. The representatives of the GIS BV
members present at this session indicated the
advantages of organising a scientific day on the topic of
inflorescence. A "project" group was set up to explore
the establishment of a French partnership on the topic
of recombination. Lastly, the participants agreed on the
need to open a forward-looking discussion within GIS
BV regarding the consequences of domesticated
apomixis.
ANR: first results of the 2015 Generic call for
proposals and publication of the 2016 action
plan
ANR (the French National
Research Agency) published
the first results of its 2015
Generic call for proposals.
Accordingly, 667 projects
were selected, representing
an overall selection rate of
9.7% across all processes
and one of 26.6% for the
second phase of evaluation.
Find the list of projects
selected per challenge by
clicking on this link.
Last year, 15 research projects selected during the 2014
generic call for projects had been labelled by GIS BV,
increasing the number of labelled projects in its
portfolio to 48. Find more information about these
projects by clicking here.
In addition, the ANR launched its 2016 action plan,
adopted by its Board of Directors on 18 June 2015. This
plan falls within the framework defined by the "France
Europe 2020" strategic agenda for research, transfer
and innovation, prepared in accordance with the
"Horizon 2020" European framework programme. The
action plan also falls within the National research
strategy (SNR), which was initiated by the law on higher
education and research of 22 July 2013. As in the two
previous years, the GIS BV scientific community will be
able to position itself around the issues of "Food
security and demographic challenges", "Clean, safe and
effective energy", "Life, health and well-being", and
Page |5
"Sober management of resources and adaptation to
climate change".
Find all the information and documents on the 2016
action plan by following this link.
Publication of the H2020 programme for the
2016-2017 period
The European Commission published an H2020 preprogramme of works for the 2016-2017 period. This
pre-programme is based on 3 pillars: (i) scientific
excellence, (ii) industrial leadership and (iii) societal
challenges. The total budget announced came to
€77,028 million. 31.73% (€24,441 million) is intended
for the first pillar, 22.09% (€17,016 million) for the
second pillar, and 38.53% (€29,679 million) for the
third pillar.
The third pillar - "Societal challenges" - covers 7
challenges, including societal challenge 2 (SC2) entitled
"Food security, sustainable agriculture and forestry,
marine and maritime and inland water research and the
Bioeconomy”. It has a budget of €3,851 million for
2014-2020. SC2 is divided into 3 main calls: (i)
“sustainable Food and Security” (SFS), (ii) “Blue
Growth” (BG) and (iii) “Innovative, sustainable and
Inclusive Bioeconomy” (ISIB).
48 topics comprise the SFS call for the 2016-2017
period. Among them, we have identified 5 topics of
major interest for the public-private community
grouped together within GIS BV.
Call
SFS-01-2016
SFS-02-2016
SFS-03-2016
SFS-04-2017
SFS-44-2016
Topic
Solutions to multiple and
combined stresses in crop
production
Teaming
up
for
good:
Exploiting the benefits of
species diversity in cropping
systems
Testing and breeding for
sustainability and resilience
in crops
New partnerships and tools
to
enhance
European
capacities
for
in-situ
conservation
A joint plant breeding
programme to decrease the
EU's and China's dependency
on protein imports
Type of actions
Research and Innovation
action
Dates
Opening:
27 Oct 2015
Budget
12 M€
Research and Innovation
action
Deadline:
17 Feb 2016 (First
stage)
13 Sep 2016 (Second
stage)
10 M€
Coordination and support
action
Opening:
04 Oct 2016
2M€
Research and Innovation
action
Deadline:
14 Feb 2017
7M€
Research and Innovation
action
5 M€
Download the full 2016-2017 H2020 programme at the following link:
https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/horizon2020/sites/horizon2020/files/09.%20SC2_2016-2017_pre-publication.pdf
Page |6
News and Events
Meeting with the INRA teams in ClermontFerrand
On 14 September 2015, the GIS BV team was in
Clermont-Ferrand at the Crouël site to meet the teams
of the "Cereal Genetics, Diversity and Ecophysiology"
(GDEC) UMR (combined research unit), led by Thierry
Langin.
Affiliated with the Auvergne-Rhônes-Alpes INRA centre,
the GDEC combined research unit works almost
exclusively on soft wheat. Recognised internationally for
its genomic and sequencing work on wheat, the unit
today strives to prepare the post-genomic transition.
The unit conducts research on areas such as the
characterisation of wheat epigenetics, genomic
selection, paleogenomics, together with wheat tolerance
to biotic and abiotic stresses.
With its straw cereal Biological Resource Centre (BRC),
the site has one of the most extensive collections of soft
wheat genetic resources, with more than 12,500
accessions listed, and offers solid scientific expertise in
the description and evaluation of the collections. The
unit can also rely on several platforms: a high-
throughput sequencing and genotyping platform
(GENTYANE),
a
high-throughput
field-based
phenotyping platform (TritiFACE), and a functional
validation platform. The access to the genetic diversity
of soft wheat and high-throughput platforms represent
the unit's strength and enable it to participate in largescale research programmes at the national and
international levels.
Through the BREEDWHEAT Future Investment project
and by way of their active participation in GIS scientific
events, the unit members are highly involved in the
activities of GIS BV. Accordingly, this meeting
strengthens existing ties and encourages us to promote
more discussions with the combined research unit's
teams. We would like to thank the research unit
members for their welcome.
Page |7
DeméTeR-Rapsodyn goes online
GIS Biotechnologies Vertes and Genoplante-Valor are
pleased to announce that the platform for requesting
transfers of the results of the RAPSODYN Investment for
the Future project (PIA) is now online.
DeméTeR-PIA was specially designed for Investment for
the Future projects and developed based on consortia
agreements for each of these projects. This tool can be
used to initiate requests for transfer of research results
for purposes other than those of the project in which
they were generated. DeméTeR-PIA will be gradually
rolled out to other Investment for the Future projects
labelled by GIS. It is the third platform developed, after
those for the AMAIZING and BREEDWHEAT projects.
Hosted on the GIS BV website, it will be accessible from
the collaborative RAPSODYN platform.
GIS Biotechnologies Vertes and Genoplante-Valor would
like to express their heartfelt thanks to the industrial
property (IP) engineers, scientists and researchers for
their contribution to the development of this tool, and in
particular Paul Souksamran (Genoplante-Valor),
Natacha Giger-Janski (Genoplante-Valor), Nathalie Nesi
(INRA) and Nathalie Morcrette (INRA).
Further information: demeter-pia@genoplante.com
Feedback on the Saclay
Plant’Innov’
Research conducted within LabEx is organised into four
key areas: i) sustainable intensification of plant
production in a changing environment, ii) plants as
"factories": improvement of plant quality for human and
animal consumption, health, the environment and
industry, iii) plants to better understand basic biological
mechanisms, and iv) the development of new resources
and biotechnologies for the research, innovation and
transfer of technologies.
The SPS (Saclay Plants Science) LabEx organised the
Saclay Plant'Innov at the IPS2 (Institute of Plant
Sciences, Paris-Saclay) on 15 October 2015. This oneday event, organised annually by the LabEx, is intended
to foster exchanges between public and private partners
to bring new research projects to the fore.
Launched in 2011, the SPS LabEx is the result of the
grouping together of some fifty research teams affiliated
with three plant biology laboratories located in Ile-deFrance (IPS2, IJPB, I2BC). It comprises approximately
700 people and includes 16 scientific platforms, more
than 5,000 m2 of greenhouses and 100 climatic
chambers.
The event resulted in several presentations focused on
innovation, the transfer of technologies, the maturation
of projects and the set-up of collaborative research
projects. Three round tables were organised,
coordinated jointly by public-private two-person teams,
focusing on topics of major interest to the plant biology
research community: Plant biotechnologies / Bioproduction, Improvement of plants / Selection,
Protection of plants and environmental adaptation.
Through these events and by drawing on its ability to
produce essential knowledge, the LabEx once again
proves its ability to position itself in the sciences.
Further information: SPS LabEx website
Page |8
Agenda
09 - 13 January 2016, San Diego, USA
International Plant & Animal Genome XXIV
15 - 17 March 2016, Berlin, Germany
International Crop Modelling Symposium 2016
07 - 09 April 2016, Paris, France
9th International Symposium on Septoria Diseases of Cereals
09 - 10 May 2016, London, UK
Plant Genomic Congress
15 - 18 May 2016, Punta del Este, Uruguay
ISF World Seed Congress
31 May - 01 June, Dijon, France
1st French-speaking meetings on legumes
26 - 30 June 2016, Prague, Czech Republic
EPSO/FESPB Plant Biology Europe 2016 Congress
29 August - 01 September 2016, Zurich, Switzerland
XXth EUCARPIA General Congress
05 - 09 September 2016, Edinburgh, Scotland
ESA014 - European Society of Agronomy Conference 2016
26 - 28 September 2016, Montpellier, France
14th International Symposium on Rice Functional Genomics
09 - 13 October 2016, Rome, Italy
European Seed Association Annual Meeting 2016
11 - 14 October 2016, Lisbon, Portugal
Second International Legume Society Conference
10 - 11 November 2016, Wageningen, Netherlands
2nd International Workshop on Wheat Genomic Selection
Page |9
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