Dr. Sophie Pautot is the Co-founder and CEO of Synaxys, a French CRO specialized in preclinical in vitro human model

She has received international multidisciplinary training. She obtained her master’s in physical-Chemistry in France, her Ph.D. in Engineering and Applied Sciences from Harvard (Boston, MA), before specialized in neuroscience during her post-doctoral training at the university of California Berkeley (Berkeley, CA).

She started as independent group leader at the DFG-Center and Cluster of Excellence for Regenerative Therapies (CRTD) in Dresden (Germany) before moving to the Advanced Technology Institute in Life Sciences (ITAV, Toulouse, France). During her 20 years in academic research, she has developed bioengineering tools to produce synthetic in vitro 3D neuronal cell culture model for mammalian cells (patented) that enable the control of neuronal stem cell growth, to obtain in vitro 3D neuronal network cultures capable of replicating the complexity of in vivo tissues. With this approach, her group has positioned itself as one of the leaders in neuro-engineering. In 2018, she launched SYNAXYS that proposes R&D tools to tackle open questions about brain pathologies that are currently out of reach with classical culture technologies. The goal is to offer in vitro neuronal models for brain pathologies to improve our fundamental understanding of CNS disorders, shorten preclinical tests, and accelerate the drug development process.