Director: Nicolas Eterradossi
Deputy Directors: Nicolas Rose and Benoît Charvet
The laboratory has four sites:
The laboratory has 204 employees, of whom half are scientists and the other half are technicians or technical and administrative staff, in over 11,000 m² of laboratory space, meeting L2 and L3 microbiological containment standards.
The laboratory's work focuses on the poultry, rabbit and pig (Ploufragan), freshwater and saltwater fish (Plouzané and Ploufragan) and ruminant (Niort) sectors.
The laboratory resulted from the merger of the Ploufragan laboratory with that of Plouzané in 2006, and then with that of Niort in 2018. These three laboratories were themselves part of different departmental applied research structures (experimental poultry station and swine diseases station for Ploufragan, "goat" branch of the Deux-Sèvres departmental veterinary laboratory for Niort) or belonged to veterinary services (fish diseases laboratory for Plouzané). These different structures were incorporated into the National Centre for Veterinary and Food Studies (CNEVA) in 1989 and then into the French Food Safety Agency (AFSSA) in 1998, which became ANSES in 2010.
Its research and reference activities require great proficiency in advanced techniques in numerous disciplines, such as bacteriology, virology, immunology, parasitology, molecular biology, epidemiology, animal behaviour and ecotoxicology. They have a fourfold purpose: animal health, animal welfare, food safety and worker health.
It has high-level technical facilities to carry out these activities, including ANSES's national high-speed sequencing platform.
Supported by local authorities (urban, departmental, regional) on its various sites, the laboratory focuses on conducting high-level, interdisciplinary and integrative applied research, in line with the needs of its supervisory ministries, the risk assessment departments within ANSES, and the sectors and inter-professional bodies involved in animal production or the food industry.
To know more about the Laboratory
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Understanding the impact of pathogenic bacteria in the intestinal microbiota of pigs and chickens on human health
The presence of certain bacteria or chemicals can modulate the intestinal microbiota of pigs and chickens. Studying these factors could help at the farm level to tackle micro-organisms that are pathogenic to humans, such as Campylobacter and Salmonella.
State-Region plan contract
Funding: Brittany Region, Côtes d’Armor département, Saint-Brieuc Armor Agglomeration, ANSES, and European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)
The aim is the complete restructuring of the laboratory's conventional poultry experimentation centre on the Beaucemaine site in Ploufragan. The following operations have been planned:
State-Region plan contract
Funding: European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and ANSES
A set of scientific equipment was purchased to develop the laboratory’s research into pathogens and infectious diseases.
State-Region plan contract
Funding: Brittany Region, Côtes-d’Armor département, Saint-Brieuc Armor Agglomeration, ANSES, and European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)
Construction of a research and development platform on the use of livestock manure as agricultural fertiliser.
State-Region plan contract
Funding: European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), Brittany Region, Côtes-d'Armor département, Saint Brieuc Armor Agglomeration, and ANSES
The aim of this project is to guarantee the sustainable supply of animals with a controlled microbiological status, i.e. specific pathogen-free (SPF) animals. These animals are used in experimental infectiology to study interactions between rearing conditions, health, and the exposome.
Operations planned as part of the project:
State-Region plan contract
Funding: Brittany Region, Côtes-d'Armor département, Saint Brieuc Armor Agglomeration, and ANSES
The laboratory is studying the various chemical, physical and biological components of the exposome.
This project has received funding for the acquisition of equipment to study the biological exposome:
Equipment associated with ANSES's national high-throughput sequencing platform :
Several technical or professional partners contribute to the laboratory's work through framework agreements – GDS France in Niort, French Poultry and Aquaculture Breeders Technical Centre (SYSAAF) in Plouzané – or through the Sanivol joint technology unit, created in partnership with the Technical Institute for Poultry Farming (ITAVI) at the Ploufragan site.
The laboratory is also one of the components of the AgriFood-Transition Carnot Institute, which brings together 17 research establishments and agri-food technical centres in Brittany, with the aim of producing research under partnerships to help with the changes taking place in the various agri-food sectors.