Sustainable treatment of chemical waste
Solution
Bacteria: natural master recyclers
To fight chemical pollution, we are discovering unique bacteria of high degradation performance and using them as biological solutions to dispose of specific industrial chemicals.
Sustainable treatment of industrial chemical waste
We are working on providing a more sustainable alternative to current industrial pollutant disposal methods.
Applications
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PFAS
PFAS are one of the greatest pollution challenge of our century and often considered to be “forever chemicals”. With our technology, we have found and are now further developing promising bacterial communities for the degradation of certain types of PFAS.
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Pharmaceuticals
We discover bacteria to degrade specific active pharmaceutical ingredients and by-products of production. Our technology can also evaluate the natural biodegradability of pharmaceuticals to help companies create sustainable compounds.
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Microplastics
Microplastics accumulate in natural water bodies where some bacteria have adapted to degrade them. We can specifically leverage the untapped potential of the deep ocean’s biodiversity to degrade microplastics.
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Your own need
With our technology we find the right bacterial community to treat your specific chemical effluents.
Services
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Biodiscovery and treatment solutions
Based on your specific needs for chemical waste treatments, we discover custom bacterial communities. We optimize these communities and verify their scalability. We can take it one step further and provide the scaled up bacterial solution for the treatment of your target waste with the help of our experienced industrial partners.
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Biodegradability studies
Our technology can be used to determine the natural biodegradability of your chemical products. We provide you with a full assessment of biodegradability in various aqueous environments (waste water treatment plants, river, ocean). We determine the biodegradation rate as well as the chemical by-products created during the degradation process.
Technology
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Microfluidic device to attract and capture bacteria
We place target pollutants in our unique microfluidic devices. Bacteria capable of degrading these pollutants are attracted and trapped.
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Deployment in aqueous environments
We use a “fishing rod” for bacteria. We deploy our microfluidic devices in aqueous environments using our proprietary, patent-pending robotic enclosure. We go beyond the currently accessible limits of biodiscovery by being able to sample from surface to depth of any water body (e.g. deep ocean, lakes, wastewater plants, polluted site, etc) and therefore accessing to the large diversity of natural bacterial degraders.
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Bacteria cultivation and biodegradation optimization
The specific bacterial degraders are retrieved from the microtechnology and brought to the laboratory for cultivation. Their biodegradation ability is confirmed and optimized.
Founding Team
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Dr. Estelle Clerc
CEO
Estelle holds a PhD in marine microbiology from ETH Zurich. In her research, studying the behavior of bacteria in the ocean using in situ microfluidics, she established the groundwork and technology used in the startup. Passionate about leveraging the power of the microbial world to have a direct impact on our world, Estelle started to develop the startup during her PhD. She was recently awarded a Bridge Proof of Concept Fellowship from Innosuisse, to further support her innovative vision and the startup.
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Geoffrey Besnier
Operations Lead
Geoffrey spent the last 2 years coaching over 150 startups from ETH Zurich. That is where he met the CellX team. Prior to that, he started his career in Brussels as a consultant on regulatory affairs and EU innovation grants. He then became the CFO and later deputy managing director of a Paris-based innovation institute offering entrepreneurship trainings, innovation consulting and tech transfer services.
Geoffrey brings to CellX his business experience and his passion for bringing sustainable technologies to the market. -
Christian Engler
Engineering Lead
Christian brings to the team his passion and expertise for underwater robotics and a solid engineering background. He built his first underwater robot for his high school final project, which later further developed into a product brought to market by an ETH spin-off he initiated in his Bachelor. After field experience in the industry, Christian returned to ETH to complete his studies and met Estelle. Together they developed the patent-pending robotic enclosure used by CellX. -
Dr. Fabienne Kurt
Product Development Lead
Fabienne holds a PhD in Microbiome Biotechnology from ETH Zurich. Her previous research focused on formulating microbial products and developing bioprocesses for the production of live biotherapeutic products. With experience in building a company from scratch as a co-founder of the former ETH spinoff PharmaBiome AG, Fabienne brings valuable entrepreneurial skills to CellX. She is passionate about leveraging microbes to create solutions that positively impact the ecosystem through waste reduction.
With the support of
