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iMEAN¹ is a bioinformatics company providing R&D support services to companies in the biotechnology sector as well as support services for academic research. The goal of the startup is to reduce the cost and time of access to technologies of virtual organizations and systems biology methods that both combined constitute a revolution in the way of understanding biology in the era of post-genomics.

"We originally shared the constatation that currently in biology, the value is less in collecting more data than in making them useful. We want to support our partners towards a science based on more causality, based on the biological mechanisms underlying their observations. This aspect is particularly crucial for the development of predictive tools for the adaptation of living organisms to the challenges of climate change that await us all. » explains Rémi Peyraud

The technological solutions proposed by the start-up are based on a platform for mathematical modeling of living organisms, called "virtual" organisms, and on innovative bioinformatics software. Rémi had already presented to us in previous highlights² his participation in the "Pathogenic power of Ralstonia and adaptation to its environment" and "Quantitative immunity in plants" LIPM teams, in particular the creation of a cellular model of the pathogenic bacterium Ralstonia solanacearum linking a genome-wide metabolic network and a network of regulatory genes identified as controlling virulence.

When asked to present the service offer of iMEAN for private companies, Rémi explains to us "Our services mimic the experimental processes of R&D to make them cheaper and faster on our servers. They enable us to increase the profitability of our clients' R&D processes, but also to generate innovative solutions that can be patented."

The emerging company is particularly interested in developing services for industrial microbiology (synthetic biology), agronomy (virtual selection of plants of agronomic interest) and academic research (systems biology, biostatistics).

"We have a goal to improve complex traits, such as yield, in plants of agronomic interest by at least 10%." He concluded.

Finally, and beyond the interest in terms of services for research, iMEAN is also a team of 3 young researchers (with the recruitment of biostatistician Fanny Bonnafous) all from a TULIP unit who give themselves the necessary means to use the knowledge and skills acquired during their stay at the LIPM. And in this regard, the LabEx TULIP wish them every success.