Cernunnos (2020-2024)

Like agronomic plants, the economically profitable exploitation of microalgae will necessarily involve the exploitation of improved strains. The improvement of microalgae species has received little interest from the scientific community until recently. Different strategies for improving microalgae exist, but the genetic breeding of microalgae strains of interest has never been carried out.This is in particular due to the little knowledge available on the reproductive cycle of most microalgae.

The Cernunnos project has the dual objective of

1) understanding and describing the life cycle of the microalga Tisochrysis lutea which have a broad spectrum of applicattion in marine biotechnology and for which we have a collection of strains with different phenotypes of interest,

2 ) control sexual reproduction, paving the way for obtaining hybrid lines and combining the phenotypes of interest.

Our partners:

The Cernunnos project is carried out in collaboration with the cytometry platform of the University of Nantes (CytoCell) and co-funded by the French Region of Pays de la Loire (“Paris Scientifique 2020” call) and the French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea (IFREMER).