Our team

Alexandre Cavezza, an organic chemist with two decades’ experience in industry research & development and project management, has served as Executive Director of MetaGenoPolis since 2018.

Alexandre previously worked as an agrochemicals researcher and managed R&D projects at L’Oréal Paris before taking on his role at MetaGenoPolis.

He brings strengths in technical knowledge and team management: working with individuals that have diverse areas of expertise to create innovative, sustainable products. He is driven to make the expertise and services of MetaGenoPolis accessible to private sector partners.

Florence Haimet, Deputy Director at Metagenopolis, has more than 30 years of experience in research management and has been in charge of partnership for the Microbiology Division of INRAE for 12 years.

She has worked with a variety of groups including start-ups, international businesses, and business consortia, and has experience in the scientific management of ventures such as the MetaHIT project and the International Human Microbiome Standards (IHMS) project

Her expertise includes contract negotiation, intellectual property management, and communication with industrial partners; contributing to human health and well-being through the translation of scientific findings is at the core of her work for MetaGenoPolis.

Joël Doré is Scientific Director of both MetaGenoPolis and the SAMBO platform, while also serving as an INRAE research director and steering the Micalis Institute’s Food and Gut Microbiology for Human Health.

He joined INRAE more than 30 years ago after receiving his PhD from from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (USA), and now has over 200 scientific publications to his name.

Joël received an INRAE Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017 and has been the recipient of numerous research-related honours.
He aims to contribute to a better understanding of the intestinal microbial ecosystem in order to support effective, science-based therapeutic approaches in medicine and nutrition.

Hervé Blottiere is an immunologist and expert in functional metagenomics who serves as the scientific director of the METAFUN platform at MetaGenoPolis.

With over 100 peer-reviewed publications to his name, Hervé’s main research interests have to do with digestive tract physiology: the cross-talk between gut Microbiota and the intestinal mucosa, and investigating Microbiota molecular signals that are implicated in this cross-talk.

In addition to his role in MetaGenoPolis, he is Scientific Director of the Functionality of the Intestinal Ecosystem (FINE) laboratory, Ex-Vice President of the French Club d’Etude des Cellules Epithéliales Digestives (CECED) and  a member of the French Gastro Enterology Society (SNFGE).

Dusko Ehrlich is an internationally-recognized leading scientist in the field of intestinal Microbiome, and serves as principal investigator of MetaGenoPolis and scientific director of the platforms METAQUANT and INFOBIOSTAT.

He specializes in microbiology and genomics and has published over 340 documents in these fields of study.

He is a member of the American Academy for Microbiology, the Croatian Science Academy, the French Academy of Agriculture, and the European Molecular Biology Organisation.

Dusko completed his PhD at Paris Diderot University before becoming a research associate in the lab of Nobel Prize Winner Prof. Joshua Lederberg at Stanford University.

Dusko became a research director at INRAE in 1986, and later became the co-ordinator of the landmark MetaHIT project, which gathered clinicians, genomic specialists, microbiologists, computer science specialists, and bio-analysts. MetaHIT succeeded in characterizing the intestinal Microbiome in various disease states, and in defining the existence of enterotypes.

A trained scientist, Karine Valeille now heads MetaGenoPolis strategic partnerships and business development related to the microbiome: human and animal nutrition and health.
She works to establish partnerships for set-up innovative and competitive projects through collaboration between recognized complementary skills in pharmaceutical groups, start ups/SMEs, academic research, and hospitals.

After a PhD in Nutritional Physiology (University of Paris Sud-Orsay) on the theme of modulation of cholesterol metabolism, Karine was an « early drug development » pharmacologist researcher in the field of diabetes/obesity at Pierre Fabre Médicament and then in charge of e-health, biological diagnostics and translational medicine projects at Medicen Paris Region.

Florian Plaza-Onate works as a bioinformatician for the MetaGenoPolis platform METAQUANT/INFOBIOSTAT, and co-author of several important publications related to shotgun metagenomic data.

He received his PhD diploma in Life Science from the Paris Saclay University, with research interests in parallel programming, metagenomics, and data mining.

Florence Thirion graduated from Ecole Centrale de Lille (general engineering) in 2013, after completing a Master degree in bioinformatics at the Wroclaw University of Technology (Poland), within the framework of a double diploma.

After a one-year experience in a start-up in the metagenomic field, Florence joined in 2015 the InfoBioStat team as a data scientist to develop automated pipelines for metagenomics.
She is also in charge of project management from quotes to final analysis report.

After an experience as a microbiological engineer at the Champagne Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin and as a clinical study engineer at the APHP, Anne-Sophie obtained her PhD in microbiology financed by the French Armee (DGA), with work focused on nasal microbiota and colonization by Staphylococcus aureus. Anne-Sophie then worked at MetaGenoPolis as a bioanalyst to increase her skills in data science and bioinformatics. She completed her microbiome expertise at Danone in research and innovation with various scientific and communication missions. Anne-Sophie joined MetaGenoPolis via INRAE transfert as microbiome communication manager in October 2019.

After graduating from AgroParisTech (Food and environmental engineering school) in 2016, Sébastien Fromentin joined the InfoBioStat team in January 2017 as a biostatistician.

Sébastien worked on several european projects for 2 years and a half and is now in charge of finding and updating statistical and visualization tools for metagenomics analysis. He is also the main contact of MetaGenoPolis for public research projects and, as a INRAE Transfert, in charge of developing partnership with industrial partners.

After an academic career in microbiology, Chloé completed a PhD at the Pasteur Institute on the production and entry of botulinum toxins in the intestine, and a post doctoral degree at IBENS on the transcriptomic modification of intestinal cells during an infection with L. monocytogenes.

Subsequently, Chloé wanted to work in scientific innovation, and after a short experience as a consultant in innovation financing, she worked at Axelys Santé, a CRO specialized in medical and pharmaceutical affairs, as a development and innovation manager.

Chloé joins MetaGenoPolis in July 2020 as Project Manager Officer and will be in charge of monitoring the unit’s projects.

Nicolas Pons, operational manager of the MetaGenoPolis platform INFOBIOSTAT, has been a bioinformatician at INRAE in Jouy-en-Josas since 2003.

With over publications to his name, his expertise is in the development of databases and processing methods for the analysis of metagenomics data.

Prominent research projects that he has worked on include MetaHIT, MicroObese, MetaCardis, and EvoTAR. Nicolas completed his PhD in 2007, during which he developed a strategy for reconstructing transcriptional regulatory networks in bacteria through the detection of DNA regulatory boxes. In 2010, he began working with the high-throughput sequencing platform MetaQuant at Micalis Institute, and joined the MetaGenoPolis team.

Véronique Léjard  is responsible for the R&D of the METAFUN platform.

Her main interests are the exploration of interactions between gut Microbiome and intestinal mucosa, as well as the identification of bioactive clones that affect human intestinal cell function.

Véronique obtained her PhD in physiology and pathophysiology from the Pierre and Marie Curie University, with work focused on transcriptional regulation of type I collagen in tendons; she subsequently worked with the Muscle and Tendon Formation and Repair team at the Developmental Biology Laboratory in Paris, in the Extracellular Matrix and Development team of the Institute of Biology and Chemistry of Proteins, and in the Animal Genetics and Integrative Biology research unit of INRAE. Since 2013, Véronique was responsible of the METAFUN plateform of MetaGenoPolis. She is now in charge of the research and development of the METAFUN platform.

After obtaining a Master of Science degree from Robert Gordon University (Scotland), Elliot joined the INRAE MICALIS Institute as an engineer where he worked on projects focusing on the interactions between microbiomes (intestinal and pulmonary) and the host.

In 2017, Elliot started a PhD at the MICALIS Institute on the isolation of bacterial strains from the oral cavity and the characterization of their effects on respiratory health.

After graduating from Sorbonne University in June 2020, Elliot joined the METAFUN platform of MetaGenoPolis as Production Manager in Functional Metagenomics in July 2020.

Christian obtained a Master in molecular biology at the University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis in 2012. His primary focus was on plant-microorganism interactions, before joining the CEA and spending several years doing genetic engineering of various strains of marine microorganisms, funded through industrial contracts with biotechnology companies.

In 2019, Christian joins the SAMBO platform of MetaGenoPolis as production manager, to develop biobanking and the DNA extraction semi-automated pipeline of the platform. He is now in charge of this platform.