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Our experimental facility for insects consists of a containment building (European agreement 2008/61/CE) combining in fact 2 main laboratory areas:

•  an insect rearing area (80 m²) restricted to non-infected  insect strains such as (Spodoptera frugiperda, Spodoptera littoralis, Galeria mellonella, Locusta migratoria et Hyposoter didymator)
• an experimental facility stricto sensu (~220 m²) to perform biological experiments using the different entomopathogenic organisms  we study in our lab : densoviruses, entomopathegenic nematods and bacterias, parasitoid hymenopteran and polydnaviruses.
   This experimental facility is divided into 2 zones :
  A planning contract between the French government and Languedoc-Roussillon Region (Vectors and Emerging Diseases) made this new facility possible to build.
  • 4  biological containment laboratories” (20 m²) located within the regular laboratory spaces where we routinely manipulate quarantine species
  • a new experimental zone (~ 200 m²) that should open during fall 2012. It will be composed of dedicated laboratories and a quarantine zone to receive and rear field-collected insect populations

In fine, this experimental facility allows experiments on Lepidopteran biological models of DGIMI such as Spodoptera frugiperda,  Spodoptera littoralis, Helicoverpa armigera that are quarantine species in Europe.

 There are 3 major aims for this facility of 300 m²:

• quarantine species insect rearing
• experiments management / insects supply
• research engineering involving functional genomics of insects (for example RNAi)

Staff

Facility director: Anne-Nathalie Volkoff

Person in charge of regulations compliance: Emmanuelle d’Alençon

Persons in charge of insectarium: Gaétan Clabots (60%),  Clotilde Gibard (10%)

Person in charge of experiment facility: Magali Eychenne

Persons in charge of biological containment laboratories: Véronique Jouan, Doriane Mutuel, Sylvie Pagès

Person in charge of insects collection and quaratine management: Marie Frayssinet