During the 13th Probiotics, Prebiotics and New Foods Congress, Microbiomepost.com conducted an exclusive interview with Philippe Langella, Research director at INRAE.

In this interview, the microbiologist retraces a 20-year research journey at INRAE, France’s public institute for agriculture, food and environment, where his laboratory investigates interactions between probiotics, commensal bacteria and the host, with a focus on inflammation and inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD). 

The turning point came with clinical observations in Crohn’s disease: together with gastroenterologist Harry Sokol, Langella compared the gut microbiota of patients in relapse versus remission and found that those in relapse had markedly reduced levels of Faecalibacterium prausnitzii, while patients in remission showed higher abundances. This led to the hypothesis that F. prausnitzii could be a beneficial commensal. Subsequent work, published in 2008, demonstrated in murine models of chemically induced colitis that both the live bacterium and its culture supernatant could ameliorate inflammation and restore gut health. Mechanistic studies identified butyrate production and, crucially, a secreted protein termed MAM (microbial anti-inflammatory molecule), which exhibits strong anti-inflammatory activity and whose efficacy varies across F. prausnitzii strains. 

In 2016, this body of work gave rise to the startup Exeliom Biosciences, co-founded by Langella and partners from gastroenterology, industrial fermentation and biotech. The company has industrialized a drug product, strain EXL01, and shown in mouse models that it can counteract Clostridioides difficile infection and enhance responses to immune checkpoint inhibitors by modulating the gut microbiota. EXL01 is now being evaluated in multiple human clinical trials in cancer, IBD and C. difficile infection, with a phase 1 study in IBD (“MAINTAIN”) completed without safety issues, marking a key step in translating a commensal bacterium into a next-generation microbiome-based therapy.