Franck Zal: From a Marine Worm to a New Hope for Transplantation
Franck Zal, CEO – CSO at Hemarina, shared a post on LinkedIn:
“Tomorrow is World Organ Donation Day.
A day to remember that behind every transplant, there is first an extraordinary act of generosity: the gift of an organ – the gift of life.
For me, this day also resonates deeply with a story that began more than 20 years ago with a very simple scientific question:
How can a marine worm breathe both in water and in air, while we cannot?
Studying Arenicola marina led me to discover an extracellular hemoglobin with remarkable properties.
I then understood that this molecule, shaped by hundreds of millions of years of evolution and adapted to repeated variations in oxygen availability, could potentially help address one of the major challenges in transplantation: ischemia-reperfusion and organ preservation.
That fundamental discovery eventually gave birth to HEMARINA and to HEMO2life, developed to provide oxygen during organ preservation.
This oxygen carrier is CE marked and could be use in all Europe countries and associate countries accepting this regulatory pathway MDR 2017/745.
This journey has strengthened one of my deepest convictions:
Nature is an immense library of innovations.
The medicines and medical technologies of tomorrow may already exist somewhere in today’s biodiversity.
But innovation only has meaning when it serves people.
In transplantation, every organ matters.
Every minute matters.
Every donor matters.
Behind every graft is a donor and a family who made an extraordinary gift.
Behind it is also a recipient hoping for another chance at life – and an entire chain of surgeons, physicians, nurses, coordinators, researchers and caregivers working to make that gift possible.
Our responsibility as scientists and innovators is therefore immense: to protect this precious gift and give every donated organ the best possible chance of becoming a new life.
On World Organ Donation Day, my thoughts go first to all organ donors and their families, and to all those who make transplantation possible around the world.
To donate an organ is to give something irreplaceable: time, hope and life.
And to the next generation of researchers and innovators, I would repeat the words with which I concluded this interview:
Dare. Stay curious. Be resilient. And above all, never give up.
Because protecting life, protecting biodiversity and advancing medicine are ultimately part of the same story.”
Title: First-in-human use of a marine oxygen carrier (M101) for organ preservation: A safety and proof-of-principle study
Authors: Yannick Le Meur, Lionel Badet, Marie Essig, Antoine Thierry, Matthias Büchler, Sarah Drouin, Charles Deruelle, Emmanuel Morelon, Francis Pesteil, Pierre-Olivier Delpech, Jean-Michel Boutin, Felix Renard, Benoit Barrou
Title: HEMO2 life improves renal function independent of cold ischemia time in kidney recipients: A comparison with a large multicenter prospective cohort study
Authors: Yannick Le Meur, Eric Delpy, Felix Renard, Thierry Hauet, Lionel Badet, Jean Philippe Rerolle, Antoine Thierry, Matthias Büchler, Franck Zal, Benoit Barrou
Title: Long Term Results of the Use of the Oxygen Carrier M101 as an Additive to Organ Preservation Solution
Author: Franck Zal
Title: First human facial retransplantation: 30-month follow-up
Authors: Laurent Lantieri, Bernard Cholley, Cedric Lemogne, Romain Guillemain, Nicolas Ortonne, Philippe Grimbert, Eric Thervet, Alexandre G Lellouch
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