Jean-Pierre Bourgin Institute - Plant Sciences (IJPB)
Research unit
The Institut Jean-Pierre Bourgin - Sciences du Végétal (IJPB) is one of the largest plant science research centres in Europe, bringing together a range of multidisciplinary resources and skills (biology, chemistry and applied mathematics) that is unique in France.
Research is organised around three main areas, ensuring a continuum of research from knowledge production to innovation in plant biology:
> Area 1: A better understanding of the fundamental processes involved in the functioning of plants and their interactions with the environment
> Area 2: Design tomorrow's plants for sustainable agriculture in the face of climate change
> Area 3: Developing new plant-derived products for food and non-food uses
In addition, our new unit trajectory (2026-2030) includes three flagship projects, located at the interface of several teams and drawing on our existing resources (projects and infrastructures):
> Flagship project 1: Development of new genomic techniques: from the laboratory to the field.
> Flagship project 2: Understanding how micro- and nanoscale modifications determine cellular organisation and biological functions on a macroscopic scale.
> Flagship project 3: Multiscale integration of natural or induced trait plasticity within regulatory networks.
Our activities also include the transfer and sharing of knowledge through teaching, training, mediation and partnerships.
Innovation themes
- Energy, Ecology, Environment
- Complex systems and software engineering
- Modelling and simulation
- Quality of life - Health - Food
- Chemistry - Materials
- Climate (observation - monitoring), environmental management, eco system
- Green chemistry
- New energy sources and production system
- Animal health and nutrition
- New food production model (culture, process...)
- Food safety and quality
Route de Saint-Cyr
78026 VERSAILLES
Expertises
Development
Signalling
Modelling
Physiology
Interactions with the biotic and abiotic environment
Biomass
Seeds
Bioproducts
Applications sectors
- Biotechnology
- Energy
- Agri-food industry
- Art / Culture
- Agriculture
- Chemistry / Plastics (Glue, Plastic, Rubber...)
Total number of employees
Number of researchers : 110
Number of doctoral students : 34
Equipment(s) open to collaboration
- plant cultivation under controlled conditions and in greenhouses, quarantine and bio-security facilities S2 and S3
- automated phenotyping 4 macroscopic phenotyping robots using visible, IR and fluorescence imaging
- propagation, storage and distribution of genetic material (50,000 insertion mutants, several thousand recombinant lines)
- functional and structural study of proteins, proteomic analysis (heterologous expression, purification, 1 and 2D electrophoresis, crystallisation)
- plant imaging: visible and confocal microscopy, in situ hybridisation, laser dissection, electron microscopy, flow cytometry, sub-cellular and dynamic localisation (spinning-disk microscopy), immunolocalisation and FISH
- analytical chemistry of plant-derived compounds: analysis of primary metabolites (metabolomic profile) and secondary metabolites (flavonoids including anthocyanins, glucosinolates, carotenoids) by GC-MS and LC-MS/MS, assay and characterisation of lipids and hormones by LC-MS/MS, characterisation and assay of parietal polysaccharides by NIRS, FT-IR, GC-MS and Maldi-TOF (enzymatic fingerprinting)
Keywords
- Genome dynamics
- Epigenome dynamics
- Cellular physiology
- Molecular physiology
- Development
- Reproduction
- Primary metabolism
- Specialised metabolism
- Environmental perception
- Signalling
- Modelling
- Multiscale modelling
- Plant-microorganism interactions
- Plant-insect interactions
- Natural variability
- Water use efficiency
- Nitrogen use efficiency
- Carbon use efficiency
- Abiotic adaptation
- Biotic adaptation
- Genetic editing
- Biotech and trait improvement
- Biostimulation in agroecology
- Biocontrol in agroecology
- Biomass production
- Biomass processing
- Seed production
- Seed quality
- Green chemistry
- Bioproduct bioreactors
- Bioproduct development
- Bioproduct engineering
- Biostimulation solutions
- Biocontrol solutions
Projects examples
- Plant2Pro Carnot Institute
- ANR Investissement d'Avenir BFF
- ANR Investissement d'Avenir PEAMUST
- ANR Investissement d'Avenir GENIUS
Industrial and scientific relations
Private collaborations
- collaboration with several major groups
Establishments of affiliation
Département(s) de recherche
- SDV (Life sciences)