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NeuroFood (16-18 October 2024)
 
HomeProgramSpeakersJoël Doré

Joël Doré

Université Paris-Saclay, INRAE, AgroParisTech, MICALIS, MetaGenoPolis, 78350, Jouy-en-Josas, France

https://mgps.eu/
https://www.micalis.fr/poles-et-equipes/pole-ecosystemes-alimentaires-et-digestifs/fonctionnalite-de-l-ecosysteme-intestinal-nicolas-lapaque

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Title

Gut microbiome resilience: strategies for intervention

Abstract

Like most eukaryotes living on earth, humans are microbial, ecosystems and symbioses. In humans, this intimate relationship starts at birth, making the first 1,000 days a sensitive period in the life cycle. Each adult individual interacts with 50 trillion bacteria and many other microbes present on the skin and at all the body's mucosal interfaces, providing essentially protective functions that make them a key element in maintaining health and well-being. However, the human-microbiota symbiosis is fragile, and recent changes in our lifestyles may have favored an alteration in this symbiosis, frequently associated with chronic disorders and diseases whose incidence has been increasing, uncontrolled, for several generations. It is in this context that microbiota science is today documenting an invisible erosion of our microbiomes that is accompanying the 6th extinction of living organisms. In many of the chronic conditions of modern society, the loss of richness in our intestinal microbiota is accompanied by intestinal permeability, inflammation and oxidative stress, which can mutually support each other in a vicious circle. Such dysregulation can tip the system into a state of pre-disease or disease, sustained by circular causalities and impossible to resolve by current therapies which only manage symptoms, and more often than not in an organ-centric way. A technological revolution in microbiota science has taken place over the past 20 years, leading to the era of metagenomics - the characterization of microbiota by massive sequencing. It consolidated earlier observations on gut microbiota diversity and inter-individual heterogeneity. It has documented new concepts such as enterotypes, stratifying the human population into several major intestinal ecologies. Finally, it has confirmed the existence of altered microbiota in a large number of clinical indications and chronic disorders, and highlighted low gene richness as a risk predictor with obvious relevance for decision support in medical management. A causal link has in some cases een evidenced by microbiota transfer in animals and humans. There are two imminent prospects for innovation in preventive nutrition and therapy. Diagnosis of the state of the symbiosis will be a tool in the service of a medicine that integrates lifestyle, as soon as practitioners can prescribe and, and access via a biology laboratory to 'microbiota and host' data positioning any individual in the landscape of the general healthy and sick population. This perspective will benefit from large-scale projects such as ‘Le microbiote français’ (lefrenchgut.fr), which aims to recruit 100,000 volunteers in the general population. Nutritional prevention and precision medicine of the “microbial human” will also emerge. Epidemiology documents the highly significant protective effects of the Mediterranean diet, whose characteristics are in line with the concept of a holistic approach to preserving the host-microbes symbiosis. Recent work on animal models demonstrates that nutritional ingredients targeting all the levers of an altered symbiosis can be just as effective as chemical treatments for depression. Clinical trials are currently underway (OptiMood, ICAN) to validate their relevance in patients. While nutrition and supplements based on the combination of dietary ingredients may have their place in a global approach to prevention and therapeutic support, there remain contexts of unmet medical needs where nutrition will not be the major recourse. In these situations, where the patient's survival is threatened and medicine has no solution, rebuilding symbiosis by transferring fecal microbiota from healthy donors to patients may be an option. In conclusion, many innovations are expected from emerging knowledge on host-microbes symbiosis, for a new medicine of the "microbial human", interestingly also aligned with the challenges of sustainability of living systems and planetary health.

Biosketch

Joël Doré joined INRAE in 1983 and received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in the U.S. in 1988. Trained in microbial ecology, he developed intestinal metagenomics for diagnostic applications and tools used to study interactions between food, microbiota, and their hosts. Joël Doré devoted his carreer to scientific research on the gut microbiome and their applications. He aimed to contribute to a better understanding of the symbiosis between humans and microbes to improve prevention and treatment. With more than 250 publications (H-index of 90), Joël Doré received LABIP’s International Science Award in 2008 ; the Simone and Cino del Duca Foundation’s Grand Prize in Science (along with S.D. Ehrlich) In 2014, the Dupont Nutrition & Health Science Medal for Excellence in Microbial Research in 2016 ; and the prize Benjamin Delessert in 2024. He is scientific coordinator of the project https://lefrenchgut.fr. Cofounder and scientific advisor of MaaT Pharma, Novobiome and GMT, Joël Doré is science coordinator of the digital platform https://www.gutmicrobiotaforhealth.com.