Olga Chashchina, Entrepreneurship for health and society

You were born and began your studies in Russia. Was this a favorable environment for you to pursue a career in science?

I grew up in Novosibirsk, Siberia, which is a very important university town. It's the capital of the Siberian branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. This place thrives on science. I was surrounded by scientists, like my mother. Even though she had to give up her career for lack of funding in the 90s, she pushed me in that direction. So studying science was an almost natural choice. In this case, I studied physics. I was proud to succeed in this complex discipline, which is also fascinating for the beauty of the mechanisms behind the phenomena of the Universe.

Why did you decide to study at École Polytechnique? What did you learn from this experience?

The truth is, my motivation for taking the competitive entrance exam as a foreign student to come to France was linked to a love story, which eventually turned into a love for a country! I also understood that science today is international and that it was important to have this kind of experience. At École Polytechnique, the training is of a very high theoretical level, but it also pays a lot of attention to collaborations with industry and the creation of value through research. It made me realize that you can have a positive impact on society by doing something other than fundamental research.

How did you manage to combine these aspects of research and entrepreneurship afterwards?

Working in a consultancy firm gave me the opportunity to look at a wide range of subjects in terms of business management. It was very enriching, but somewhere inside me there was a desire to return to scientific innovation and technical strategy. For that, I needed to be recognized as an expert. So I decided to do a PhD in the biomedical field, at the Hydrodynamics Laboratory (LadHyX*), under the supervision of Abdul Barakat, the founder of the interdisciplinary Engineering for Health (E4H) center at Institut Polytechnique de Paris.

Did your thesis prompt you to start your own business?

When I started my PhD, I wasn't sure I wanted to become an entrepreneur. I had already turned down an opportunity to become a project leader because I wasn't confident in my abilities at that stage. The PhD changed my mind. I felt I had succeeded in my quest to make a contribution to a great research edifice; you have to be very resilient, because experiments don't always work out and difficulties take time to overcome. Having had other professional experiences has helped me, and I think there should be more opportunities for PhD students to be able to work in industry before or during their thesis.

Has being a woman been an obstacle in your career?

After my thesis, when I was looking for a new project and interacting with different people, one of them behaved so inappropriately that I could have filed a complaint for harassment. Obviously, the project came to a halt. Unfortunately, this kind of behavior is still present today. Sometimes it's not the result of bad intentions, but it shows up in a subtle way, in the way you speak or in gestures that are almost invisible. I think that talking about it, giving examples and showing how it impacts women, and men for that matter, is extremely important. Fortunately, I later met my current associate, Alexandre Boulanger (X2008), with whom we founded Metyos in 2021.

How are you moving forward with Metyos today?

The aim of Metyos is to design sensors that can be placed on the skin to measure, in real time and over the long term, various biomarkers involved in certain chronic pathologies. Today, patient monitoring and medical decision-making frequently rely on blood sampling, which is rather restrictive and does not allow us to measure the dynamics of our body's biochemical parameters. We've had a lot of discussions with doctors to find out what would be most useful. We are currently working on dyskalemia, i.e. the irregularity of potassium levels in the body, which has very serious consequences for heart health. We have filed four patents on our device, and the next challenge is to successfully complete clinical studies.

*LadHyX: a joint research unit CNRS, École Polytechnique, Institut Polytechnique de Paris, 91120 Palaiseau, France