Rodolphe Barrangou, PhD

“We use CRISPR-Cas in probiotic strains to enhance their features and their functional attributes, to drive their survival in the GI tract, and to enhance their ability to make us healthier and happier.”

Rodolphe Barrangou is a Named Professor of Food Science and the Todd R. Klaenhammer Distinguished Scholar in Probiotics Research at North Carolina State University. His research focuses on CRISPR-Cas9 in bacteodd R. Klaenhammer Distinguished Professor, NC State University; Editor in Chief at The CRISPR Journal, CRISPR Lab Leadria.

Barrangou has worked on beneficial microbes, focusing on the occurrence and diversity of lactic acid bacteria in fermented foods and as probiotics. Using functional genomics, he has focused on uncovering the genetic basis for health-promoting traits, including the ability to uptake and catabolize non-digestible carbohydrates. He spent 9 years at Danisco-DuPont, characterizing probiotics and starter cultures, and established the functional role of CRISPR-Cas, as adaptive immune systems in bacteria. He has focused on establishing the molecular basis for their mechanism of action, as well as developing and applying CRISPR-based technologies for genotyping, building immunity and genome editing.

Through all of this, he has also led the growth of this field through teaching, lecturing, serving on scientific advisory boards, and co-organizing many of the annual CRISPR biology meetings that arose immediately following the publication of his groundbreaking paper.

Barrangou earned his PhD in Functional Genomics at North Carolina State University.