The Agronomy and Environment Laboratory (LAE) conducts research programs in the domain of the functioning of plants, prairies and plant production systems, focusing on the agronomic and environmental consequences of this functioning. The research subjects undertaken deal with two areas: the sustainability of agricultural systems, on the one hand, developing agri-environmental indicators and studying the agriculture-biodiversity interactions, and on the other hand, the metabolism of plants involved in the processes for defense and adaptation to environmental stress (secondary metabolism).
The laboratory is composed of 10 teacher-researchers and 2 researchers, 12 technicians and 14 doctorate and post-doctorate researchers, and has two work sites, ENSAIA (Nancy) and Colmar. There are two research teams:
- The Secondary Metabolism unit aims at understanding the metabolism stemming from the phenylpropanoid path, developing technologies that will enable the industrial enhancement of molecules, and developing a platform for producing proteins from plants for therapeutic use.
- The Sustainable Agriculture unit focuses on perfecting methods and tools for assessing the environmental impact of agricultural practices, concentrating on massive field crops, prairies and perennial crops.
The laboratory has proven its strong commitment to optimizing its research work with the creation of their company, Plant advanced biotechnologies, which came into being through the development of a new technology for the non-destructive harvesting of the active ingredients in plants, which are used in the pharmaceutical industry and through the creation of a tool for assessing crop systems in the agro-environmental field, INDIGO®, which is widely used throughout France.
Equipement:
- Structural and metabolic analysis platforms
- IFR 110 confocal imaging system
- Recombinant protein platform
- Greenhourses and plant growth chambers
- eFLORAsys database
- Software library: Indigo Arboriculture, Grandes cultures, Viticulture, PhytoChoix
LAE is involved in:
- L’IFR 110 EFABA (Forest Ecosystems, Agroresources, Bioprocesses and Food),
- Competency center FABELOR (GIS Forest, Food Industry, Biology, Environment LORrraine),