Jeanne Ropars
Postdoc
Contact
Current adress
Evolution et Systematique
Laboratoire ESE
Universite Paris-Sud XI
Batiment 360
91
405 Orsay cedex, France
jeanne.ropars[AT]u-psud.fr
Research
I am currently a postdoc in the university of Paris-Sud
(Orsay) interested in the cheese adaptation of Penicillium species using genomic data.
During my
PhD, I also worked on cheese fungi and I was interested in systematics, sexual
reproduction and evolutionary mechanisms associated with cheese adaptation. My PhD was realized in the
frame of a CIFRE contract (Convention Industrielle de
Formation par la Recherche) which aims to associate
research and technology. It brought together the MNHN of Paris and the SPPAIL (Syndicat Professionnel des Producteurs d’Auxiliaires pour l’Industrie Laitière). My
research project was a part of the project “Food-Microbiomes”
and was funded by the ANR (Agence Nationale
pour la Recherche). This project aimed to establish a
corpus of knowledge on cheese ecosystems and their yet insufficiently studied
microorganisms, to make possible their gain of the Qualified Presumption of
Safety (QPS) status, a regulatory framework proposed by the European Food
Safety Authority (EFSA) to protect consumer from products inoculated with microorganisms
potentially harmful for health.
After a
taxonomic and phylogenetic work, I studied the ability of sexual reproduction
by Penicillium roqueforti, the blue
filamentous fungus used as a starter for blue-veined cheeses production.
Finally, I worked on Penicillium genomic
data to look for evolutionary mechanisms that may be associated with cheese
adaptation.
Oral
presentations
November
2012: Réseau Ecologie des Intéractions Durables (REID) groupe
champignons, Paris, France - “Sex in cheese: evidence for sex in the fungus Penicillium roqueforti”
October
2012: Dartmouth college, Hanover (New Hampshire), USA
– “Systematics, adaptive mechanisms and sexual reproduction in cheese fungi”
August 2010:
9th International Mycological Congress, Edinburgh, UK - Food mycology workshop
- “Taxonomic analysis, a first step for the promotion of the safe use of Fungi
in cheese fermentations”
December
2008: 14th Congress of the Museum students - “How to obtain a phylogenetic tree
from nucleotidic sequences OR The path of the
molecular phylogenetist”
Poster sessions
August 2010:
9th International Mycological Congress, Edinburgh, UK - Food mycology workshop
- “Taxonomic analysis, a first step for the promotion of the safe use of Fungi
in cheese fermentations”
Publications
Ropars J, Dupont J, Fontanillas
E, Rodríguez de la Vega RC, Malagnac F, Coton, M, Giraud T & López-Villavicencio
M, (2012) Sex in Cheese: Evidence for Sexuality in the Fungus Penicillium roqueforti. PLoS ONE 7(11): e49665. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0049665 (PDF)
Ropars J, Cruaud
C, Lacoste S & Dupont J, 2012. A taxonomic
and ecological overview of cheese fungi. International
Journal of Food Microbiology (PDF)
Giraud F, Giraud T, Aguileta G, Fournier E, Samson R, Cruaud C, Lacoste S, Ropars J, Tellier A & Dupont J, 2010. Microsatellite loci to recognize species for the cheese starter and contaminating strains associated with cheese manufacturing. International Journal of Food Microbiology, 137, 204-213 (PDF)