Jérémie Le Goff, a pharmaceutical graduate, presented his thesis in partnership with the GRECAN - Groupe Régional d’Etudes sur le Cancer (Regional Cancer Research Group) on the detection of DNA adducts in agricultural environments. “I was studying the impact of products used by farmers on DNA.

This work contributed to the assessment, via biological markers, of exposure to potentially carcinogenic products for man, certain types of pesticide being a case in point.” Adducts are linked to the capacity of many substances to fix DNA, hence becoming toxic for man and for the environment, in particular via an as yet poorly defined implication in the complex process of carcinogenesis. “

After an initial pre-incubation period coached by Caen University’s SAIC - Service des Activités Industrielles et Commerciales (Industrial and Commercial Activities Department) and funded by the Lower Normandy Regional Council, we concluded that there was a market opportunity.” Detection of adducts applies, for example, to the petrochemical sector, but more generally to any company concerned about the impact of its activities on the environment, on its personnel or on the consequences of cosmetic care, pharmaceutical drugs, diseases… “The technology we use to analyse adducts is already renowned in the field of biological research, but, for the time being, we are the only team looking to commercialise it, within an innovative approach in terms of market reactiveness and adaptation.”

Jérémie Le Goff joined Normandie Incubation in March, after having been the lucky winner of the 2008 Concours national d’aide à la création d’entreprises de technologies innovantes - French national innovative technological business creation competition (in the Emergence category). Thanks to grants provided by the Regional Council for the incubator’s talented young project initiators, he will now be able to continue his economic assessment and to diversify his offer. “I would like to offer other innovative biomarkers over and above adducts.” And within a growing context of risk prevention and precautionary principles, Jérémie Le Goff, could well have the played the trump card.

Jeremie Le Goff
02 31 45 52 18

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