CSFV A goDIVA

Partner 3

Partner 3: Agence Françe;aise de Sécurité Sanitaire des Aliments (AFSSA)

Institute

The French Food Safety Agency, is a governmental organisation reporting to three ministries, Health, Agriculture and Consumer affairs. Its main objective is to ensure food safety, including animal health, from the production of raw materials right through to distribution to the consumer. The Agency has specific responsibilities in animal health and veterinary medicines. It has four Departments:

• (1) Scientific and technical support and research. AFSSA has 12 research laboratories, located in different parts of the country, covering such fields as animal health and welfare, food hygiene and quality, nutrition and water quality.
• (2) Nutrition and food safety including animal health: assessing the risks.
• (3) Veterinary drugs: assessment and control.
• (4) Phytopharmaceuticals products.

Expertise

The Swine Virology and Immunology Unit at Ploufragan, is National Reference Laboratory for Classical Swine Fever, African swine fever and Aujeszky's disease and OIE Reference Laboratory for Aujezsky's disease. This laboratory is involved in studies on new generation vaccines (DNA and sub-unit vaccines) and new routes of administration (e.g. the oral route) and on respiratory viral syndromes as swine influenza or PRRS. The group has a solid experience in all classical techniques used for virus studies, molecular methodologies, antibody detection, immunoglobulin isotyping by ELISA, and analysis of antibody specificity by Western blotting. In addition, immunological tools are available including flow cytometry, in vitro re-stimulation of white blood cells and cell cytotoxicity assays. The AFSSA Ploufragan has high containment facilities suitable to keep CSF infected pigs under disease secure conditions. These facilities comply with L-3 bio-safety conditions. These facilities have an official agreement delivered by the French Ministry of Agriculture on 22/06/90 (number: A22745). M-F Le Potier has a personal agreement for animal experiments, delivered by the French Ministry of Agriculture (no 22-17, 2007-2012). Inbred dd pigs and outbred SPF pigs are available for the animal experiments. [Quality assurance: The Swine Virology and Immunology Department complies with the ISO/CEI 17025 standard and has passed a quality certification on March 1999]. MF Le Potier is member of the executive committee of the NoE EPIZONE (http://www.epizone-eu.net).

Role and contribution in the project

Research activities will focus primarily on work package 14 in addition to WP 3 and 11

Principal scientific and technical personnel

Dr Le Potier, Marie-Frédérique PhD, Head of the Virology and Immunology unit,
Dr Kuntz-Simon, Gaëlle PhD, Deputy Head of the Virology and Immunology Unit,
Dr Blanchard, Yannick PhD, deputy head of the Genetic Viral and bio security Unit
Cariolet, Roland Engineer in Biology
Hutet Evelyne, Le Dimna Mireille, Chevallier Sylvie

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