DR. Yacine NIA  is deputy head of Staphylococcus, Bacillus and Clostridia unit, responsible of National Reference Laboratory for Coagulase Positive Staphylococci (CPS) and deputy director of the European Union Reference Laboratory for CPS. He started his research experience on contamination and metals’ speciation in the environment. Since 2013, his research activities are in the field of enterotoxin detection in food matrices by ELISA and mass spectrometry methods.  He took part in standardization activities as coordinator of the working group 30 dedicated to the detection of staphylococcal enterotoxins by mass spectrometry. Finally, he is involved in French and European Union projects dealing with the development of analytical tools to characterize bacterial toxins.