Could you please introduce yourself?
My name is Patrick Gonzalez, I am a French assistant professor and a researcher at LRPIA laboratory in SupBiotech, an engineering school in biotechnology. Within UNIgreen, I am co-coordinator of Research and Innovation.
Through my career as a researcher, I have developed an expertise in cell death mechanisms. These are puzzling phenomena that cause cellular self-destruction and which are nevertheless essential to promote life. Today, we use the knowledge about cell death in highly valuable applications for human, plants, or environmental health. For instance, novel anticancer drugs trigger cell death of tumour cells and combat the disease. But these mechanisms are also exploited to develop new environment-friendly solutions that protect crops and plants from pathogens. These possibilities are inspiring my work and my teaching at SupBiotech. Our lab’s goal is to develop prophylactic biological solutions as a substitute to conventional pesticides to mitigate the negative impacts of agriculture on ecosystems. I enjoy sharing this vision with students and involve them in the change through projects that we develop together.
Which added value or benefits of UNIgreen would you like to highlight, and why?
In one sentence, for me, UNIgreen is a unique integrated ecosystem that offers the opportunity to develop highly valuable knowledge, breakthrough research and sound innovation to sustain the ecological transition of agriculture.
On top of it, I am thrilled by the extraordinary diversity of expertise and technical capabilities embedded within UNIgreen. I am convinced that this is a great asset that ensures a multifaceted and holistic training for European students with environment concerns at heart. Also, from research perspective, the resources pooled within UNIgreen create opportunities to develop ambitious research projects for agriculture with a transdisciplinary approach.
Another stricking feature of UNIgreen is openness to stakeholders outside from the academic domain. This also contributes to make teaching and research activities within the consortium relevant for current and future environmental challenges of agriculture. From my point of view, the efforts UNIgreen is making for inclusion are also central for the implementation of discoveries. Co-development of research and innovative solutions with civil society from early stages will facilitate their application in the real world. Overall, I believe UNIgreen is a great nest for creativity to improve agriculture sustainability.
Please tell us what UNIgreen means to you and use one word to describe it.
UNIgreen is for me the right illustration of what solidarity between nations can achieve in Europe. I feel privileged to be part of this initiative because it creates a momentum for people sharing a common vision and conviction to team up for changes. I do believe that the co-development of solutions at European scale will ensure their future implementation and common profit of their positive impacts for Europeans citizens and beyond.
