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Marie PAPIN is recruited as a PhD student in the MASS team on December 01, 2022.

Her thesis project focuses on the assessment of the nutritional benefits and health risks of the insect-based bioconversion of urban and peri-urban bio-waste by the black soldier fly, Hermetia illucens: focus on the bioaccumulation of micronutrients and micropollutants.

Insect farming is an ecological way to recycle and recover bio-waste (into proteins for animal feed, fertilizer, biofuel, etc.). In urban and peri-urban areas, where waste management is more than ever a major issue, insect-based bioconversion offers an attractive solution but also raises specific questions, particularly in terms of the heterogeneity of bio-waste and the control of health risks. Faced with this observation, the main objective of this thesis will be to make an initial assessment of the benefits and risks associated with the use of insect-based bioconversion to recycle bio-waste from urban and peri-urban areas. Benefits and risks are potentially very diverse, so this PhD-thesis will focus on an example of risk, the potential bioaccumulation of micropollutants by insect larvae and an example of benefit for animal nutrition, and indirectly for human nutrition, the benefit of the larvae to bioaccumulate micronutrients of interest.

This PhD-thesis will be attached to a collaborative project called FLY4WASTE (Assessment of the benefits and risks of insect-based bioconversion of urban and peri-urban bio-waste by the insect Hermetia illucens - 2022-2024) and will be carried out in partnership with the insect-based bioconversion company BioMiMetiC. It is co-funded by the BETTER metaprogram and by the equity of the MASS team.

PhD-thesis supervisors: Christelle Planche, Erwan Engel (QuaPA-MASS) and Patrick Borel (UMR C2VN, Marseille).