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The French Startup DNA Script produces synthetic DNA thanks to modified enzymes. Its co-founder, Thomas Ybert, explains how this invention will revolutionize health and biotechnology.

Founded by three partners, Thomas Ybert, Sylvain Gabriel and Xavier Gordon, the DNA Script startup, based in Paris, was launched in 2014. In strong growth, it has already raised 27 million euros from public and private investors (Illumina Ventures, Merck Ventures, Invest ID, BPI France, European Commission ...). This French nugget targets the synthetic DNA market, estimated at 1.5 billion dollars worldwide and growing by 10% per year. On November 9, she opened a subsidiary in the United States and recruited three new people including a former director of the Roche laboratory to accelerate growth.

What is your start-up?

We make synthetic DNA through natural enzymes that we have genetically tamed to produce custom sequences. We have created a kind of "molecular 3D printer", where each researcher can develop a personalized DNA sequence thanks to the cartridges containing the enzymes.

What is the advantage over existing technologies?

Today, DNA is made by chemical synthesis, a 40-year-old method! This requires solvents that are harmful to the environment and that can damage the DNA. It is also a slow method, where you have to assemble the sequence, nucleotide by nucleotide. It can take several weeks. Then you have to order the DNA, which is sent by mail, again, it takes a few more weeks. Thanks to our printer and our software, no need to be a chemist! You produce the DNA you need in your lab in a matter of hours.

What will this DNA be used for?

Our first client will be the world of academic or industrial research: scientists use DNA every day for their projects. It's a bit like the "computer code" they use to develop new products. I, myself, did a lot of DNA handling when I worked at Total to develop biofuels for aircraft. The applications are mainly in the field of health (new drugs, personalized therapies ...), agri-food (for example, to improve the nutritional qualities of a food), or the industry (cosmetics, textile .. .), to make innovative materials. In the longer term, DNA could be used to store data and then replace the silicon chips.

Who are your competitors?

Other start-ups are also working on enzymatic synthesis DNA, but since we were among the pioneers in 2014, we have gained a good head start. Our enzymes are thus much more efficient. Today, we are able to produce a 150-nucleotide sequence with an efficiency rate of 99.5% per addition cycle, compared with 30 for our competitors, as far as I can see ... May, we were only 50, which means we have tripled in just four months! We are now at the same level as conventional chemical synthesis and we target fragments of 1,000 nucleotides in one day.

When will you launch your product?

We are still in the development phase, but the method should be validated next year for a commercial launch in about two years. We want to build real industrial production capacity and compete with industry giants like IDT or Eurofins Scientific.

The technology of the future according to you?

The blockchain! Today, personal data is the jungle. The blockchain could come to channel all that and better manage how our information is stored and exploited.

Another start-up that you admire or would have liked to create?

SQZ Biotech, which has developed a new process for injecting genetic material into a cell. This perfectly complements our technology for gene therapies: we first make the desired DNA and then transfer it to the cell.

Portrait DNA Script

• Domain: biotechnologies
• Creation: 2014
• Founders: Sylvain Gabriel, Xavier Gordon, and Thomas Ybert
• Amount of fundraising: 27M USD

An American study states that women's brains appear to be three years younger than men's, which explains why women retain good cognitive abilities in old age. Sex would influence the aging of the brain at the metabolic level.

The brains of men and women show morphological differences; for example, men have larger brains (see article below). But there are also differences in cerebral aging, according to this new study from Washington University in St. Louis. The fault with the metabolism of the brain which seems different in the man and the woman.

The brain needs glucose for its function, but the way it uses it varies over time. In babies and children whose brains are maturing, a metabolic pathway, aerobic glycolysis, is particularly involved. Then, in adolescents and adults, aerobic glycolysis is less and less common in the brain and, after age 60, its proportion reaches a low level.

In general, the brain's metabolism decreases with the normal aging of the body. But are there differences between men and women during metabolic aging of the brain? To find out, scientists studied 84 men and 121 women, or 205 people aged 20 to 82 years. Participants spent a PET scan - a tomography by emission tomography ( PET ) - to measure the flow of oxygen and glucose, so glucose metabolism in the brain.

Using this data, the researchers created an algorithm that predicted men's age from the metabolism of their brains. Next, they applied this algorithm to predict the age of women's brains, based on data from their brain metabolism. As a result, the algorithm predicted women to be 3.8 years younger than their actual age.

The female brain remains metabolically younger

Then the researchers did the opposite: they generated an algorithm from women's data to predict cerebral age, and then applied it to men. This time, the algorithm gave men a brain age 2.4 years older than reality. For Manu Goyal, lead author of this study published in PNAS, "The mean difference in cerebral age between men and women is significant and reproducible. "
Even in the youngest women, who were less than 30 years old, this relative youth of the brain was visible. So for the researcher,   "It's not that the brains of men are aging faster: they start in adulthood by being about three years older than women's, and this lasts a lifetime. "

Sex could, therefore, influence the metabolic evolution of the brain with age:  "I think it could mean that women do not experience as much cognitive decline in the last few years because their brains are actually younger, and we work currently on a study to confirm it. " The researchers followed a cohort of adults to see if those who have a brain that appears younger are less concerned with cognitive problems as they age.

To keep the brain young, it is advisable to have a healthy lifestyle, to cure his diet and exercise physically.

WHAT YOU MUST REMEMBER

• During aging, the brain's metabolism decreases.
• Researchers have studied the cerebral metabolism of 200 adults.
• Globally, women's brains are still younger than men's, from a metabolism point of view.

In short: is the brain differences in men and women?

Article by Agnès Roux published on February 14, 2014

Is the brain a sexed organ? Yes, if we believe the science. In a recent review, a British team summarized all brain differences between men and women discovered over the last two decades. This global assessment could help neurobiologists better understand certain mental pathologies.

Whatever you say, men and women are very different and do not generally have the same tastes, desires, skills, behaviors, and interests. Why? This controversial subject is the subject of many serious scientific studies, particularly with regard to the structure of the brain. In order to take stock, researchers from the University of Cambridge (United Kingdom) have examined in detail the literature of the last 20 years. In total, they looked at 126 scientific publications dealing with this topic at all stages of life, from birth to 80 years. Their findings, published in the journal  Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, recall the dissimilarities between the brains of women and men.
The major difference is in size: on average, men have larger brains than women. In detail, the excess volume in men is 12% for the skull, 9% for the gray matter, 13% for the white matter and 9% for the cerebellum. The authors also observed a structural contrast between the brains of both sexes. In fact, the density and volume of certain tissues are greater in certain areas of the brain of men, whereas they are in other brain areas in women.

"Cerebral differences between the two sexes affect certain regions, such as the limbic system, involved in the development of psychiatric disorders such as autism, schizophrenia or depression," says John Suckling, one of the authors. This analysis could help us better understand why some of these pathologies develop in one genus rather than the other. "