Ali Badu meets the French researcher Franck Zal who is revolutionizing medicine and to whom we owe “Equivalent discovery of penicillin a century ago“. His work has led to extraordinary advances in transplants, surgery, stroke and the list goes on. ‘Marina’, his start-up attracts investors from all over the world. An incredible story where everything starts with sea green, you land on the shores of Brittany. Can. He publishes “Treasure Under the Sand” with Elena Sander and Robert Thibiert (Les Arenas Editions).
It is an incredible story and feat where everything starts with a sea worm, which you can see on the beaches of Brittany. Imagine a walker on the beach of Roscoff in Brittany on January 16, 2018, a researcher specializing in marine biology, passionate about the seabed since he was very young, who meets this tiny, insignificant, underestimated creature. After careful consideration, the researcher realizes that on close observation of the life and existence cycle of this tiny marine worm, it turns out to be in fact the savior of human life. In the local dialect it is called “l’arénicole” or “buzuc”.
The oxygen-rich marine worm: a public health treasure
It is the marine molecular oxygen transporter that helped save the life of a patient with neurofibromatosis disease by enabling the complete success of a second transplant. for what Because the structure of this small marine animal allows great innovation in the preservation of human oxygen, for example during vital operations.
This tiny sea worm is able to breathe both at high tide and at low tide, that is, it can live underwater for several hours with oxygen and for several hours without oxygen. The researcher tells us that this discovery responds to something that has not been resolved since the advent of medicine and is called ischemia-reperfusion. : “The life cycle of this tiny oxygen-filled sea worm conforms to the natural pattern of high tides and low tides, which is transposable to the functioning of the human body. Low tides are ischemia (loss of oxygen) and high tides, reperfusion (replenishment of oxygen). Worms have been doing this for millions of years. is responding to a medical problem because it manages to breathe continuously in two very different environments under water! Indeed, this little creature is defined by hemoglobin, which can retain oxygen. At least six hours, in other words the time of the tide. This marine molecule is able to bind 40 times more oxygen than our human hemoglobin and thus provides tremendous capacity to deliver physiological oxygen during transplantation, transfusion, healing. With this technology, we are able to keep the lungs for 48 hours instead of 6 hours.“
At a time when transplants concern 22,000 patients on waiting lists and 1,000 patients dying each year because maintenance techniques are not appropriate, this small, underestimated marine animal is on the verge of revolutionizing public health. In a way, the researcher recalls, “This library of innovations to learn from nature, conservation of biodiversity, especially in health“
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