The MetaboHUB infrastructure project is intended to create a national metabolomics and fluxomics platform that will place France among Europe's leaders in the field. This infrastructure will provide metabolomics tools and services to academic laboratories and the private sector to advance research and innovation in all areas where understanding and analysing the metabolome is a decisive factor: nutrition, health, agriculture and biotechnology. 
MetaboHUB brings together four metabolomics platforms: 'Bordeaux Metabolome Platform' (INRA, Université de Bordeaux and CNRS); 'MetabolomeIDF' (Paris-Saclay, CEA and Université Pierre et Marie Curie); MetaToul (Toulouse, Université Paul Sabatier, INSA, INRA, CNRS and INSERM) and 'Exploration du Métabolisme' (Clermont-Ferrand, INRA and Université Blaise Pascal). Each platform has developed cutting edge methods and knowledge in specific scientific fields, including health, nutrition, the environment and green and white biotechnology. Initially, the powerful synergies between these platforms will translate into sharing the methods deployed in a metabolomics/fluxomics study along the entire analysis chain, namely from bench-top techniques to bioinformatics tools ('wet to dry metabolomics'). Thus the MetaboHUB will be equipped with everything needed to design new methodological tools to overcome today's obstacles. In a subsequent phase, MetaboHUB will put its skills, methods and tools to work in large-scale projects developed in collaboration with public and/or private actors.  Positive effects are expected in all the fields mentioned above (health, environment etc.). 

Contact information :  
Coordinator : Dominique Rollin - dominique.rollin@inra.fr
Project manager : Caroline Sautot - caroline.sautot@inra.fr
www.metabohub.fr

CRB ANIM - Network of Biological Resource Centres for Domestic Animals

The goal of this project is to integrate and strengthen the biological resource centres (CRBs) which preserve reproductive material and genome material for the domestic animal species raised in France, including mammals, birds, fish and shellfish. The CRB-Anim network comprises public research organisations (INRA, CNRS); institutions of higher education (Université de Tours, Université de Rennes I, AgroParisTech, national veterinary schools); a science foundation (FRB) and two private platforms; GIE LABOGENA and the company ANTAGENE, which host genomic collections for breeders. This national infrastructure has six hubs located near Paris, Rennes, Tours and Lyons, which store about 530,000 biological samples (seeds, embryos, cells, tissue, DNA, RNA). CRB-Anim addresses two priorities of the National Research and Innovation Strategy: (1) health, diet and well-being; and (2) environmental urgency to preserve biodiversity. This project is one of the winners of the 2011 Investments of the Future call for projects and will receive €11 million over a total period of eight years. This project addresses two major challenges for science and society: the erosion of biodiversity, particularly in farmed species that are subjected to intensive breeding; and the boom in genomics, which ushers in a new era in understanding the relationship between phenotype and genotype and leveraging the phenotypic wealth achieved through the domestication of animals. This research work must have access to characterised biological samples and tools to cryopreserve biological resources.

Contact information :
Coordinator : Michèle Tixier-Boichard - michele.boichard@inra.fr
Project manager : Laure Akomia - laure.akomia@inra.fr
www.crb-anim.fr

Phenome will equip the French scientific community with an infrastructure and a series of methods to characterise genotype panels of different species (the main agronomic species) under various scenarios associated with climate change. Its objectives are to: (i) build or finalise platforms with extensive instrumentation at five sites in France that, as a whole, can meet needs pertaining to the main agronomic species within environmental constraints; (ii) develop hardware and software applications with technological breakthroughs and invent new sensors, analytical methods and databases compatible with millions of data points; and (iii) disseminate techniques and methods to the French phenotyping community (seed companies, technical institutes, public research entities) and facilitate the emergence of French SMEs involved in developing phenotyping methods. The Phenome consortium includes 12 academic groups and 2 technical institutes.

Phenome will be an essential tool for (i) the academic community, enabling the development of original programmes in genetics/genomics; (ii) private seed companies which will have access to the infrastructure through collaborative projects and bilateral contracts; (iii) French SMEs which will benefit directly from the project via subcontracting and indirectly to facilitate their access to the international markets for phenotyping and precision agriculture. The project began on 1 September 2012.

Contact information :
Coordinators :
François Tardieu - francois.tardieu@inra.fr
Jacques Le Gouis - jacques.legouis@inra.fr
Project manager : Pamela Lucas - pamela.lucas@inra.fr
www.phenome-fppn.fr