The alarmingly high incidence of obesity, particularly in children, highlights the need to better understand the factors and mechanisms involved in the early development of this pathological condition. Accumulating evidence, including work from the host lab, support the idea that the maternal nutritional environment could influence the offspring’s susceptibility to develop obesity and related comorbidities in later life. In particular, there is growing appreciation that developmental malprogramming of hypothalamic neuroendocrine system by the perinatal environment represents a possible cause for these diseases. However, the mechanisms by which the maternal environment affects hypothalamic development and predisposition to obesity are still largely unknown. We hypothesize that the maternal gut microbiota (mGM) conditions, in the offspring, the development of hypothalamic structures with lifelong metabolic consequences. We will test this novel hypothesis by using two complementary animal models of impaired mGM: germ-free dams and dams with antibiotic-induced alteration of gut microbiota during pregnancy and lactation. We will assess neuroanatomical organization of hypothalamic feeding circuits, structural and functional development of blood-brain barrier as well as metabolic outcomes in the offspring. Finally, we will examine the cause and effect relationship between mGM and hypothalamic development and function by determining whether i) maternal fecal material transplant and ii) dams’ supplementation with specifically identified microbial metabolites prevent offspring’s neuroanatomical and metabolic alterations. Completion of this project will i) shed light on a new vertical role of mGM on hypothalamic neurodevelopment and metabolic programming and ii) identify new potential drivers leading to early-life metabolic disorders. Given the high prevalence of maternal antibiotic use and childhood obesity, this project could have a potential impact on public health.

This is a higher education student and staff mobility project, please consult the website of the organisation to obtain additional details.

"During this 4th year of the Erasmus+ Mobility of Higher Education programme, the faculties of the former University Lille 2 - Health and Law (“ex-Lille2”) have enabled 238 of its students to perform a mobility under the Erasmus scheme in a European country, including 63 students who carried out traineeships.The programme has enabled these students to obtain ECTS credits in 114 partner institutions in 17 European countries. The 6 countries attracting the most students are, in descending order: Spain, UK, Germany, Ireland, Italy and Turkey. Of the 153 students who left during the autumn semester, 56 spent one semester and 97 students one year abroad. 85 students left during the spring semester. The “ex-Lille2” students who performed an Erasmus stay abroad came from the following ISCED fields of education:*0312 Political sciences and civics = 64 students from the Faculty of Legal, Political and Social Sciences (FSJPS);*0311 Economics and 041 Business & Administration = 59 students from the University Institute of Technology C (IUT C), the Faculty of Finance-Banking-Accounting/Marketing & Management of Distribution (FFBC-IMMD) and of the FSJPS;*042 Law = 32 students from the Faculty of Legal, Political and Social Sciences;* 0911 Dentistry, 0912 Medicine and 0916 Pharmacy = 32 students from the Faculties of Dentistry, Medicine and of Pharmacy:* 0914 Medical diagnostic and treatment technology = 30 students from the Faculty of Engineering and Management of Health (ILIS);* 1014 Sports = 11 students from the Faculty of Sport;* 0542 Statistics = 5 students from the IUT C. Their numbers by level of studies:- Short cycle (""DUT"" University Technical Degree and post-DUT university diploma) = 33 students- 1st cycle (Licence) = 98 students- 2nd cycle (Master’s) = 101 students- 3rd cycle in health sector = 6 students.Most students worked in one or even two foreign languages: English (68%), Spanish (18%), German (3%) Italian (4%), Polish and Portugese (1%). One student worked in Dutch. 5% studied or worked in French in a French-speaking establishment (Belgium, Turkey and Spain).Ex- Lille2 registered 79 Erasmus exchange students from 33 partner institutions coming from 10 European countries. The largest representations came from, in descending order: Spain, Italy and Germany. 1 student performed an Erasmus traineeship in the laboratory of toxicology.Incoming students by educational unit:*Health sector (medicine, pharmacy) = 43%*Faculty of law, political and social sciences = 42,5% *Faculty FFBC-IMMD = 12% * IUT C = 2.5%.By level of study:Undergraduate/1st cycle = 80 %Master/2nd cycle = 19%Doctorate level = 1%15 staff members of the University ex-Lille 2 carried out 22 mobilities in the context of the Erasmus+ programme: 5 stays for teaching purposes and 17 for training in 7 different countries. The UK, Spain and Germany are the most visited ones. In conclusion, through Erasmus+, ex-Lille2 has enabled its students and staff members to develop their employability in the face of an ever more global employment market. As such, its Erasmus+ programme is a sustainable project. The International Relations Office has forged its policy of international openness toward European values by using the means made available by this programme.In the field of student mobility, meetings to raise awareness, educational, linguistic and cultural support, the development of mobility through academic recognition and the award of an international label are operations that are renewed. Similarly, for incoming mobility, actions in favour of those concerned (communication, social networks, assistance for finding accommodation, integration, reception and tutoring through the network of International Relations coordinators at departmental level) are maintained. The establishment of inter-institutional agreements and their implementation respond to processes that are already operational.Regarding governance and the means granted, the university fully incorporates the European aspect into the heart of its international policy within the context of the construction of a single University of Lille in 2018, making north-western Europe a major pivot for its international cooperation."

How do you nurture democracy in a republic? Today, as republics around the world are straining under the pressures of authoritarianism, this question becomes almost overwhelmingly urgent. In helping to draw the blueprints for United States republicanism, Thomas Jefferson gave his answer in temporal terms: the U.S. would remain democratic as long as each generation was given power to “repair” the Constitution to suit their era, but also the obligation of handing on that document, with the entire republic, in a peaceful and timely manner to the next generation. This pattern of generational succession, which Jefferson believed would prevent any one generation from permanently stamping their likeness on the country, became essential to nineteenth-century Americans’ socio-political outlook: to be a truly democratic republic, they believed, required living in this new temporal order, which has yet to be identified by scholarship and which I am calling “republican time.” The goal of my research project, executed under the co-supervision of Hélène Quanquin and Hélène Cottet (University of Lille, France), is to investigate the relationship between republican time and the workings of democracy in nineteenth-century America. I will accomplish this goal through a program of close reading of American literature, informed by theories of political science, history, race, and gender and sexuality.