After a PhD at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (BE, 1980) and a post-doc at the ETH of Zurich (CH), Annick Mercenier joined a small biotechnology company, Transgène S.A. (FR) for 14 years. In 1996, she joined the Institut Pasteur de Lille (FR) to set up the Department of Microbiology of Ecosystems while she was heading the Bacteriology laboratory (health applications of LAB). She has coordinated 3 successive EU programmes. In 2002, she has taken a position of group leader in the Nutrition and Health Department of the Nestlé Research Center in Lausanne (CH). She has expertise in the genetics and metabolic pathways of gram-positive bacteria of industrial interest, mucosal immunology, probiotics and interaction between the microbiota and the host immune system.

Guénolée Prioult, PhD. Since her PhD in food immunology and a postdoctoral fellowship in cellular mechanisms of allergic diseases (MGH, Harvard Medical School, Boston), she has developed expertise in the modulation of immune disorders (allergies, gut inflammation...) by probiotic supplementation as well as the cellular mechanisms involved in oral tolerance induction.