Congratulations to Thierno Diallo, who became a Doctor of Analytical Chemistry on February 8. Thierno brilliantly defended his thesis, which focused both on consumer exposure to mixtures of contaminants present in bivalves (mussels and oysters) and on the potential consequences of these molecules on the health of these marine organisms. For a number of years, unexplained deaths of bivalves have been observed along the French Atlantic coast, particularly around La Rochelle. The hypothesis underlying this thesis work was that the punctual and/or continuous exposure of bivalves to a mixture of contaminants could weaken these organisms, thereby facilitating the deadly work of viruses and bacteria. To address this issue, longitudinal monitoring of various sites impacted or not by these mortalities was carried out for a year, and targeted and non-targeted approaches were implemented on the samples taken. These analyses enabled us to characterize in situ the cocktails of contaminants to which these marine organisms were actually exposed, and to shed light on a number of hypotheses concerning the dynamics and origins of these contaminants in the natural environment. In addition, this thesis has helped to highlight the potential of high-resolution mass spectrometry to better understand the impact of anthropization on marine organisms and on our dietary exposure. This thesis was an integral part of the ANR JCJC AlimOmic project.
At the end of this thesis, which was carried out between the University of La Rochelle and Anses (Laboratoire de Sécurité des Aliments de Maisons-Alfort), no less than 8 articles were published in A/A+ ranking journals, and numerous national and international congresses were attended. These achievements are quite exceptional, and were unanimously praised by the members of Thierno's thesis jury.
The supervisory team would like to thank Bruno Le Bizec (Oniris Laberca), Farida Akcha (Ifremer), Elena Gomez (Univ. Montpellier) and Stéphane Bayen (Univ. McGill) for their careful evaluation of this work.