The two units bring together staff from the National Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety (ANSES), the National Veterinary School of Alfort (EnvA), as well as the National Institute of research for agriculture, food and the environment (INRAE). They are housed in the ANSES animal health laboratory building in Maisons-Alfort. Following the evaluation of the units by the High Council for the Evaluation of Research and Higher Education (HCERES) in 2018 and the positive opinions of the scientific councils of the supervisory bodies, the UMR agreements have been renewed. The teams, which bring together more than 90 technicians, scientific engineers, doctoral and post-doctoral students, will thus be able to pursue collaborations that have been in place for twenty years.
The Bipar unit
The activities of the UMR BIPAR, created in 1999, are centered on the one hand on the study of interactions between hosts and pathogens, with the models vectors (ticks, mosquitoes) and the pathogens they transmit (bacteria, parasites and viruses); and on the other hand, on the transmitted animal parasites via Food. It develops fundamental and applied research, for a better understanding of these interactions, taking into account the molecular, cellular and tissue levels, as well as the host and the ecosystems, including the microbiota of vertebrate and invertebrate hosts. Research also focuses on the circulation of these pathogens, innovative control strategies against ticks, pathogens vectored by arthropods and zoonotic parasites transmitted by food: improved detection and surveillance, “universal” vaccine strategies, “ecological” alternatives to antiparasitic treatments and acaricides… This UMR hosts the international collaborating center of the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) and the national reference laboratory on zoonotic parasites transmitted by food . Between 2016 and 2020, the unit published 257 scientific articles.
The Virology Unit
The activities of the UMR Virologie, created in 2002, are centered on animal viruses at risk of transmission to humans and/or emergence. Optimized diagnostic methods are thus developed for epidemiological surveillance and the study of the variability of viral strains, as well as research on the pathophysiology of animal infections, some of which focus on the risks of transmission between species, particularly from animals to humans. Finally, new approaches for the control and prevention of viral infections are studied. The UMR also conducts research on coronaviruses, including SARS-Cov-2, in particular on companion animals. It also hosts European or international reference laboratories for foot-and-mouth disease (reference laboratory for the European Union, OIE and FAO), haemorrhagic disease (reference laboratory for the OIE) or equine diseases ( reference laboratory for the European Union), but also numerous mandates from national reference laboratories (bluetongue, West Nile, African horse sickness, etc.). Between 2016 and 2020, the unit published 177 publications in peer-reviewed international journals.