Innovation Medal 2022: Pierre Nassoy, research and development hand in hand

Each year, the CNRS medals are awarded to researchers and staff who make an outstanding contribution to the institution's dynamism and reputation. Discover the research work of Pierre Nassoy, winner of the 2022 Innovation Medal. This medal honors outstanding research in the areas of technology, therapeutics, economics or society.

Research and valorization hand in hand

For Pierre Nassoy, the interesting is born of encounters. First of all, of disciplines: the CNRS research director applies physical chemistry approaches to life. And then there are the skills: "To succeed in a development project, you need promising research, but also the will to develop it. You can't do anything alone," he says.

At the Digital Photonics & Nanosciences Laboratory (CNRS/Institute of Optics Graduate School/University of Bordeaux) in Talence, he is interested in the stem cell-based therapies of tomorrow, particularly against tumors and Parkinson's disease, and is multiplying patents. Thanks to a premature start-up at the CNRS, whose "support was crucial", his company TreeFrog Therapeutics is one of the most noticed and awarded French start-ups of the last few years, both at national and international level.

With its breakthrough technology, it produces these stem cells reliably, with a very high level of quality and in large quantities, and has just opened its first subsidiary in the United States.

Innovation Medal 2022: Pierre Nassoy, research and development hand in hand with Julien Deschamps © CNRS - 2022