On 13 February 2025, Genopole held its inaugural Research Day, an event intended to valorize innovative scientific projects and strengthen synergies between academic and industrial research. The interest for such an initiative was demonstrated by the more than 100 researchers, entrepreneurs, engineers, PhD students, institutional actors and others drawn to the day-long gathering.
A new event to highlight research
Organized by the Genopole Research & Platforms Department, this new event fully reflects the biocluster’s mission of accompaniment for public and private research, made real notably through shared-use infrastructures and dedicated funding programs.
“The objective of Research Day is to give visibility to research carried out at Genopole and to favor partnerships between the academic laboratories and the businesses,” explains Christophe Lanneau, director of Research & Platforms. “This first edition is a key step in the structuration and reach of the biotech projects underway at the biocluster. With the day’s success, Genopole intends to make Research Day an annual ‘place-to-be’ for the scientific and industrial community.“
Strategic programs to accelerate innovation
The event put a spotlight on the laureates of Genopole’s excellence programs, Atige (Marie Dewannieux, Alaksh Choudhury, Ray Partho, Jean-Yves Madec) and ApogeeBio (Jeanette Zanker, Matteo Marcello, Amani Abderahmene, Emilie-Katherine Tavernier, Binita Goswami, Luana De Melo, Jesus Cordova), which play a key role in the creation of new teams and the emergence of disruptive innovations at the biocluster.
These programs attract high-level, international scientific talent, finance high-potential projects and accelerate their transfer to industry.
Since their respective launches, Atige and ApogeeBio have resulted in:
- the attribution of 94 research grants to finance postdoc positions in Genopole’s businesses or academic laboratories;
- the attribution of 37 Atige grants to support research teams in Genopole labs;
- the financing of 29 Master 2 internships at the biocluster.
Among the flagship research axes addressed during this first Research Day were:
- gene therapies: promising recent breakthroughs and clinical applications;
- innovations in biomanufacturing: new strategies to optimize industrial processes;
- structural biology and RNA: exploration of RNA structures and functions;
- One Health: an integrated approach to constellate human, animal and environmental health.
Genopole Research Day was not only a number of interesting scientific presentations, but also a veritable platform for exchange, easing encounters between academic and industrial actors.
Discussions were structured and facilitated by Prof. Olivier Biondi (Atige; team director at LBEPS), Dr. Andrew Tolonen (Atige; team director at Genoscope), Prof. Fariza Tahi (director at IBISC) and Prof. Abdelghani SGHIR (Genoscope). Collectively, they deepened the discussions on the various themes addressed during the event.
Partnerships are already starting to emerge, with a number of businesses showing their interest in work underway in Genopole’s laboratories.
The event also further strengthened Genopole’s place within the Évry-Paris-Saclay academics and research hub. This dynamic underlines the importance of the biocluster in the structuration and development of biotechnologies in France.
In the light of the success of this first edition, Genopole intends to not only continue with Research Day but also make it a key event for biotech research. The objective is to enrich the program with even more interactions between researchers and industrials, an expanded range of themes, and a greater integration of digital means.
Join Genopole for the next edition, with yet more innovations to discover and synergies to build!
