From October 9 to 11, 2025, the CNRS Festival was held at the Lewarde Historical Mining Center on the theme “Intelligence(s)”.
The IBSP team (UGSF, University of Lille – CNRS) actively participated through the workshop “Small Grains, Big Ideas: Discovering Starch”, organized in collaboration with the PLBS and MSAP platforms.
At the stand, Stanislas Helle and Nicolas Szydlowski (IBSP) led demonstrations alongside Correntin Spriet (PLBS), Xavier Roussel, and Isabelle Fabrizi (MSAP). Both young and old were able to extract starch from potatoes, observe it under a microscope, stain it with iodine, and even produce a bioplastic from this natural molecule.
This scientific outreach initiative is a continuation of the ANR PRC SinGraMics – Single Granule oMics to support starch synthetic biochemistry and ANR SAPS CSTI 2022 ADRESS22 (CNRS Hauts-de-France) projects, which support the dissemination of scientific culture around storage polysaccharides and their applications in food, energy, and biosourced materials.
