The application to the H2020 -MSCA individual fellowship program was done to explore and facilitate the re-integration of the applicant in European scientific community as he was out of the European network for more than 10 years. The stay of the applicant in the department of the Microbiology, Adaptation and Pathology (UMR5240; Lyon, France) that is part of the CNRS (French National Center for Scientific Research) was primarily used built a European network, apply for professional positions (in public and private sectors) in Europe, extend his experience in teaching while developing a new research program that would support his integration within the French or European research system. The main mission of the fellowship was achieved successfully as the applicant had to abandon his fellowship to take a new role a group leader in a private company in France. The applicant had this opportunity from the new network built and new skills acquired during his stay in the host institution.
Even if none of the original scientific milestones could be achieved, this fellowship allowed the completions and release to the public domain via publications of synthetic biology tools developed to support plant engineering. The most important outcome was the development of a robust DNA assembly tools that allow support combinatorial and rapid gene assemblies and gene stacking to support the engineering of Agrobaterium transformation compatible hosts (e.g. plants). This tool was completed with the development of a two-component-switch for plants allowing precise and robust control of transgene. This system is a negative switch composed of a RNase that recognizes a specific RNA module. Binding of the RNase prevents the translation of any mRNA sequence that contains the RNA module by cleaving it. It adds further sophistication to the fine-tuning of expression of metabolic pathways, for example, by allowing multiple genes to be switched off in response to an external cue and/or in specific tissues This system was also validated to simultaneously repress the expression of two proteins in a specific plant tissue
