Sow It Goes

Harnessing Bacteria to Combat Chemical Pollution: Dr. Estelle Clerc's Revolutionary Approach

• Nicole Davidson • Episode 2

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Pollution isn’t just something happening “out there”—it’s in your water, your food, and even your blood. From PFAS "forever chemicals" to microplastics, these toxic contaminants have infiltrated every aspect of modern life. But what if the solution already exists in nature?

In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Estelle Clerc, founder of CellX Biosolutions, to explore her groundbreaking approach to pollution cleanup: using bacteria to break down even the most persistent chemicals. With her microfluidic trap technology, Dr. Clerc is building what she calls "the Netflix of bacteria"—a catalog of microbial communities capable of degrading pollutants in industries from pharmaceuticals to agrochemicals.

🔬 How do bacteria naturally evolve to break down pollution?
🌍 What’s the real danger of PFAS and microplastics in our daily lives?
💡 Can biotechnology offer a sustainable alternative to incineration and chemical treatments?

This conversation is a must-watch for anyone concerned about environmental health, scientific innovation, and the future of pollution cleanup.

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Estelle Clerc:

Pollution is not just something you read on the news. Pollution is in your glass of water.

Nicole Davidson:

What is something we just don't get, but absolutely should.

Estelle Clerc:

It's something that ends up in your own body and poison you, basically, and you believe nature itself holds the key to reversing this damage. We can leverage the power of natural bacteria. How do you even know where to look for them? This is a selective trap. We're basically able to.

Nicole Davidson:

Dr Estelle Claire, we live in a world we have poisoned, where chemical pollution seeps into our air, water and soil, microplastics invade our food and industrial toxins linger in places we can't even see. It really feels inescapable, and yet you refuse to accept this as our future and you believe nature itself holds the key to reversing this damage. What is your vision? That's an excellent question.

Estelle Clerc:

So the vision that we have that I have also that we're developing the startup is that we can leverage the power of natural bacteria.

Estelle Clerc:

You have to really imagine that bacteria are the first living organisms that have been developing on the planet since a very, very long time and they have had the time to evolve certain metabolic abilities to do things, and do things in very, very harsh conditions. You know, in the past the planet has not been so hospitable let's put it that way for life on Earth to evolve, so therefore they had to adapt to survive. So now you, if you think about nowadays, how are the conditions on earth? Well, we have many environments that are polluted and if bacteria still want to survive in these environments, they have to manage to break down these chemicals. So now I really believe that we can, with the right tools, go find the right bacteria to do the job that we want them to perform. Therefore, you know, break down pollution. So the vision that we have, also at Selects Biosolutions, is really to leverage these unique metabolic abilities to depolute, basically, the planet, but also to bring sustainable solutions in industry, leveraging nature's solutions.

Nicole Davidson:

So with your startup, celex Biosolutions, you go out and you have to somehow find these bacteria. How do you? Where do you start? How do you even know where to look for them?

Estelle Clerc:

There's two parts in your question. So where do we find them and how do we find them? So I will tell you first about how we find them. So in my PhD at ETH Zurich, I further developed a technology that really allows us to selectively capture bacteria based on their metabolic abilities, basically based on what they can do, what they can break down, what they can perform. And this is what I have here.

Estelle Clerc:

This is like a little microfluidic device. It has several wells in which you can put any chemical of interest. So here we're talking about a pollutant of interest. You can put it chemical of interest. So here we're talking about a pollutant of interest. You can put it into the wells and once it's deployed into a body of water, the chemicals they're going to slightly get out of the ports of these wells and attract the bacteria that can sense them. If they can sense them, that means they can probably do something with them, meaning break them down. It's like you, you know, when you walk by a bakery you smell the croissant smell. Well, if you like it, you're probably going to walk into the bakery shop to get your croissant.

Nicole Davidson:

I would walk in, I love croissants.

Estelle Clerc:

so, yes, so basically, this is a selective trap and we're basically able to really capture the bacteria, very specifically these cocktails, different types of, so that we can really access, you know, any type of environments, from surface of lakes, rivers, wastewater treatment plants, down to 4,000 meters in the ocean, because, you know, also in these remote environments. Again, this is where they have evolved these crazy abilities to do things, to degrade, for example, compounds that are hard to degrade. They're similar often to pollutants. So this is how this is. The real competitive advantage that we have in the startup is really to be able to find the needle in the haystack of so many bacteria and where do.

Estelle Clerc:

To your question where do do we go? How do we know where to go? Well, so you know, now we do with the means that we have, so it has to be like an informed decision. What are we looking to degrade? Where does it make sense that we go sample, for example, for microplastics, degrader, degraders? It makes extremely sense to go sample in the deep ocean because from I come from the standpoint of a marine microbiologist and we know that with you know, like the dynamics of how carbon may it be natural or not natural meaning from these pollutant sources. It is degraded.

Estelle Clerc:

Mostly the easy stuff is degraded on the surface of the ocean and what is very recalcitrant meaning hard to degrade, it just falls down at the bottom of the ocean and you know the bacteria down there.

Estelle Clerc:

They need to eat something. So in the past and in in the many in the past, they have already been adapting themselves to tackle these very harsh carbon sources, and probably the sources of carbon that are naturally there in, like very harsh polysaccharides and so on, can have similar structures to these human made pollutants, have similar structures to these human-made pollutants. Therefore, we expect them to be potentially able to use the enzymes that they have to degrade these man-made pollutants. But then if we're talking about degrading, for example, the forever chemicals, pfas, which is a whole other topic that we are focusing on right now, then we need to go, you know, and we are focusing on right now then we need to go, you know, in polluted spaces, because it hasn't been around since very long time, still 50 to 80 years, so they have had the time to, you know, adapt. But we directly go in polluted soil or in polluted groundwater and so on, and this is where we are targeting, how we are targeting this is where we are targeting, how we are targeting.

Nicole Davidson:

So, for people who can't see the microfluidic chip, it's basically a credit card sized chip. Yeah, so you send that underwater? Yes, you said up to 4000 meters. Yeah, is it comparable to like a mousetrap with cheese? Comparable to like a mousetrap with cheese, but instead of cheese and mice, it's bacteria and certain pollutants?

Estelle Clerc:

yes, I think you're, it's you're. You're doing the correct comparison here. We call it a fishing rod, basically because you really put the carrot at the end of the stick and only the ones who like it will get attracted and trapped inside. And I think it's a very unique but very simple tool that we can use in many different environments and does the job very quickly. Also, you know, because that's been the case in bioremediation and you know in academia, that where groups try to discover bacteria that can do certain biodegradation performances, we have been sampled, sampling in spaces that are easily reachable. I mean for good reasons mostly, obviously. But now the combination of this very selective trap that that attracts like combinations of strains that can do a complex job, together with our ability to sample everywhere, basically in water bodies, really brings us forward into this um, into this um game of bringing bacteria into the world so you mentioned microplastics, pfas.

Nicole Davidson:

I've I've realized not so long ago how much these chemicals affect us in our day-to-day life. They're everywhere. They're in our non-stick cookware and water repellent clothes, anti-stain furniture, like everyday objects everyone uses. And yeah. So when you find these bacteria that can degrade certain types of chemicals, what happens then? When you've found them in the ocean, what is the next step?

Estelle Clerc:

Yes, so really finding them is the first step. It's definitely the most important step because otherwise nothing happens, obviously, but you're right. So once we have captured them, so the capture part is actually very quick. This is another advantage that we have. It's one or two hours in the target environment. That leaves them enough time to swim in there and just retrieve everything and we bring them back into the lab to grow them. And here goes the biotechnology phase. So now we have really a very strong force in the lab, which is a team of biotechnologists that are bringing these raw bacteria communities that we obtain from the environment into a commercial product. And here we have really, you know, to go through a very complex process on how do we bring bacteria from the environment stable enough, scaled up enough, characterized enough to be able to put them in industry.

Nicole Davidson:

So take me on an expedition with you, a field trip. We're in the middle of the ocean on a boat, I assume. Yes, yes If that's where you want to go, we will go there. Or where do you want to take me? Where can we go?

Estelle Clerc:

I can tell you about our campaign in los angeles. So in los angeles we went to sample for different types of pollutants, not for pfas, because this was not right the right place to sample at depth for pfas, but we tested for other pesticides, for microplastics and other types. So, okay, how does it look like? Well, you have to wake up, probably at 5 am, because the boat leaves at, you know, 6, 6.30 at the port. So we're boarding a research vessel with all our equipment. You have to imagine that this is very small, but it goes inside a bigger robotic enclosure that goes inside a bottle like a Niskin bottle. It's a very standard oceanographic equipment. We go with like two or three of them because we can do serial deployments in parallel, and then we have to drive to a spot where we want to deploy. So if we want to go deep enough, for example in Los Angeles, we had to drive two hours. Drive the boat two hours until we reach a spot where we can reach 800 meters. Okay, so in that time you're on the boat. It's a research boat, so there's a bench and so on. You have to prepare all of your material so that after two hours, when you're on the spot you're ready to deploy, because everybody's on the clock. You know these people who are driving the boat. Obviously they don't want to come back at 10 pm, although it has happened in the past. So when we arrive, basically we have to first get the water at this exact spot where we are sampling. So basically we need to go at 800 meters, where we are just not with the technology but with, like a sampler, get some water up that we filter ultra filter, meaning there's literally not a single cell anymore in there, it's just like the background nutrients and so on. Then we resuspend our chemicals. Not a single cell anymore in there, it's just like the background nutrients and so on. Then we resuspend our chemicals, meaning that we're just going to solubilize, but solubilize them really with the environmental water. This is very important so that the assay can work.

Estelle Clerc:

Then we place all our loaded devices inside the robotic pieces and and we just stick them to a cable, very big cable, held by a frame, and we lowered the bottles down to the target depth and at that time the robotics is pretty cool because it's going to be doing its job completely automated. So it's based on a depth sensor that, when it senses it has arrived at this target depth you know, 800 meters, for example it will activate, automate it and it will open, the bacteria will be attracted and it will close after one or two hours, depending on what we programmed. And then after that, manually, we just retrieve everything. And then after that, manually, we just retrieve everything. So then starts the retrieval process. So here again it's fully manual.

Estelle Clerc:

We have to take them out of the robotic parts, retrieve the bacteria from all these different chips so chips, these devices, I mean and we are then preserving them.

Estelle Clerc:

We are splitting the samples for a part that is put in glycerol, meaning it's like a little buffer that makes the bacteria cozy, so that we can bring them back frozen into the lab. And then we make a sub portion for DNA extraction to characterize them down the line, and the biggest part is really for culturing and then for counting them, basically. So imagine you have you, you are on this boat that is really like rocking, because it's already starting to drive, and you know we extract, um, the samples here with a syringe and a needle. So you, you're like this, trying not to stab yourself. Oh, my goodness, it's. I mean, it sounds bad, but it's intense. But you know, afterwards you think about it, that's something that was quite fun, but yeah, then basically we have to ship everything back to the lab and starts the biotechnology process I'm just imagining being on this rocky boat, feeling seasick trying to do the research.

Estelle Clerc:

Yes, seasickness is always a good friend of ours on these ocean deployments, but we don't. It's been a while we haven't done an ocean deployment I mean the Los Angeles was last year in May because it doesn't as I said before, it doesn't always make sense to go sample in the ocean. You know, if now we're focusing on PFAS, we really rather go to polluted environments, and there's many of them around Zurich in Switzerland. So in this summer, for example, we are planning a very big campaign in Europe, starting Bohemian, then Hamburg, and then we go rather to Belgium and the Netherlands. There's enough pollution around us as well.

Nicole Davidson:

Unfortunately, unfortunately, yes, so your startup is based in Zurich, switzerland, but then, depending on the type of bacteria you need, you just are all over the world looking for these bacteria. That's fascinating.

Estelle Clerc:

You get to travel a lot, yes, and I like this part of my job quite a bit. Already in my PhD I traveled a lot. I mean, this PhD in marine microbiology makes you tend to travel, obviously because there's no sea in Switzerland, and I liked it a lot. I get to meet a lot of different people. It's very enriching.

Nicole Davidson:

So perhaps a little bit about your background. How did you get to where you are now founding a biotech startup? How far should I go back?

Estelle Clerc:

As far as you want, okay. So you know, I think I've always spent a lot of time at sea when I was young, luckily for me, and I was very much fascinated by what was beneath the surface. You know, I was spending my time with my snorkeling gear going around like a little fish in the water and I've always really wondered what was all this unknown on the water and how we could just protect this beautiful environment. And I think it just fed my curiosity throughout all these years and it led me to develop this mindset of asking, you know, certain questions or difficult questions. And I'm just going to jump to this. I think the size of a moment where I started to study microbiology in my bachelor, very first years of the bachelor, and I just thought, you know, okay, these bacteria are just so cool. And I remember one day I walked into my microbiology professor's office and I just told I just asked him can you teach me how to discover bacteria that eat plastic? I mean, I was like, maybe you know 19. It was a very long time ago and he was like, okay, can you choose another substance, because plastic is quite complicated? You know, to start with and this is how I started, you know, a very long time ago, and they taught me luckily for me the very basics of how to go sample in the environment with the traditional methods really take a sample of water and put it on a petri dish with a selective medium containing the pollutant, see what's growing and then characterizing them and looking really at the rate of biodegradation. And I chose a substance that was that is now banished and that was contained in sunscreen called oxybenzone, and it's a very toxic, it's a hormone disruptor. Um, and yes, I did find some preliminary results of degradation of this substance and it never really continued, but I think it really, you know, sparked my curiosity and this is where it went down for me. I was like convinced about bacteria, but so after that I started to to do some different type of research and during my undergrad, still in different fields of microbiology, I looked at also plant microbiology, the bee microbiome of the bee. That was also very cool. And then finally, I went to Boston to do my master's a full year of master's research in marine microbiology. This is where it all you know. Then I was like, okay, marine microbiology it is. And basically I decided still to go back to Switzerland for my PhD because I didn't want to do you know, I don't know seven or eight years of PhD in the US. I already had more time, taken more time in my master's to go to Boston, but I had heard about this lab that just moved out next door from the lab and moved to ETH that were doing marine microbiology, because it's not so common either in Switzerland, and I just went to interview with them in the Stokke lab now at ETH. This is where it just continued.

Estelle Clerc:

The next steps continued and this is when I started to work with this microfluidic device studying how bacteria cycle organic carbon in the ocean. But I quickly realized, oh wait, we have here something, you know it was a beta version. It was very different than this that that we could use for industrial applications. It is a very powerful tool that allows you to, you know, selectively capture bacteria based on their metabolic abilities. And while I was using it to study how you know bacteria cycle polysaccharides in the ocean, I thought, what about pollutants, polysaccharides in the ocean? I thought, what about pollutants? Can I go back to my undergrad years and now really look if this tool is more powerful than the traditional methods?

Estelle Clerc:

And at that time then I really started to take some additional business courses in parallel to the PhD because in the PhD they don't teach you business obviously to look if this was like a very viable idea, if there was a potential on the market and I also at that time realized that was this was so exciting for me. This was like my, the thing I wanted to do, entrepreneurship and um. So then I graduated, uh, from my PhD in um March 2023. Then I graduated from my PhD in March 2023. Today, two years ago actually, this is funny and I stayed into the lab thanks to my very supportive ex-boss I would say my professor back then and I could run all the proof of concepts showing that we could isolate pollutant degraders. And I started to establish this big bank of bacteria that we want to do now, you know, on demand available, on demand based on their metabolic abilities. And then I started to write grants, get the grants amazingly, not immediately, though, it's not always straightforward and then I grow the team and now we're six.

Nicole Davidson:

I'm honestly so glad that life has led you down this path, because we need people like you. We need people to tackle the huge challenges our world is unfortunately faced with. And yeah, thank you for tackling this, this massive issue. I've heard so many times, especially with pfas, um forever chemicals, that it's not really possible to degrade them, so am I right in assuming that this is quite a massive breakthrough?

Estelle Clerc:

I would say so. Yes, look, I don't want to oversell nor undersell what we are doing, but I think if now the degraders for PFAS we have more than about 50 different communities that show degradation of PFAS in lab conditions if we manage to really scale them up, formulate them into a way that we can then deploy them not only in industry but also in situ, we have the tools to really bring a serious change. And this is extremely exciting. But I'm always, you know, a little bit careful by saying that there's still a bit of work to do, but it could bring a serious change for sure.

Nicole Davidson:

I imagine you must be a courageous person, someone who likes taking risks. Perhaps it depends which one who likes taking risks. Perhaps it depends which one Do you ever wake up having imposter syndrome wondering am I really the right person to be tackling this?

Estelle Clerc:

Oh, that's a tough question, but yes, I think imposter syndrome happens to people who want to do the things right, to perfectionists who want to do the things right and for sure, it's something that is very much on my mind. You know, not only am I the right person, but also am I really able to do this? And while it sounds maybe a little bit, you know, cliche, but I think you just grow through it. And because obviously this happens, because I finished my PhD, you know I was, if you want, very comfortable with what I knew about my topic, how I could interact with my peers and the level at which I was. And I think it's very normal that every PhD student, at the end of their PhD, they reach that level, or they should at least.

Estelle Clerc:

And then I took this very weird decision to just throw it out of the window and just start from scratch and go through this same cycle of learning everything, every single day something new. So when we are very lucky in startup, that we're getting a lot of traction, this helps us a lot in our endeavor, but it also brings us, and me in particular, in the forefront of what we're doing and a bit of exposure. Forefront of what we're doing and a bit of exposure. So, therefore, then, this is where I get this imposter syndrome, because I am probably looked at as maybe a figure of the topic, probably especially in this biological solutions, but I don't have all the answers, and this is, for me, probably something that I'm struggling with. But I am sure how it also happened with my PhD, where I also felt a little bit this feeling at the beginning, where I knew less that I'm going to go through it and I'm going to learn more and this is going to be better.

Nicole Davidson:

As you said in your PhD, you don't really learn how to be an entrepreneur, but then you decided to take that path. Do you have a piece of advice for other researchers, scientists who perhaps want to take this path, but they're a bit scared, Mm hmm.

Estelle Clerc:

So my advice can only be, you know, from my perspective I'm a very young entrepreneur and I've only experienced so much, so I can only share from my point of view at this moment. But in my opinion, you know, it's so, so worth it because, as you said, on that side I do like to take risks and I never really like to stay too long in a comfortable position. I think it's definitely worth it to. You know, just first of all, to extend your skill sets to learn new things. To extend your skill sets to learn new things. As one of the founders of this startup, every single day I have to do something I've never done before, like today I'm on a podcast. I mean it's pretty amazing, but I feel like it's just making me grow.

Estelle Clerc:

And, on a more practical sense, what I could say to people who want to become founders or to former PhD students who want to try something in innovation is just just try. You know, obviously you know in the field that the likelihood of you succeeding I'm still aware of it right now, I mean, nothing has been, has has been won completely uh is that most startups fail. But you know, even if you fail, that's what I think every single day. Even if I fail and we don't manage to bring this into the world, for whatever reason there's so many reasons this could go wrong I'm gonna get out of this as a a winner personally, because I will have learned so much and then I will have established so many new connections that you know I'll find something else to do that's still going to be very cool and that's going to satisfy my own you know personal ambitions. Let's put it that way.

Nicole Davidson:

I think you're such a good example for many people, because often we want to do things and we have certain desires or dreams, but then fear gets in the way and sometimes it's just the first little step that we need to take to pursue something, instead of then not doing it because we're afraid, and then looking back and wondering what if so? Again so happy, you took that step and are pursuing your vision. If we go back into your research, into what you're doing at CellX, one question I have is you know, industrial pollution is such a huge deal and I think many people are aware of it, but why hasn't this been tackled before? Or what is the challenge with industrial chemical pollution?

Estelle Clerc:

It's a very complex question. I mean, why hasn't it been tackled? So you have to look at what's the status quo at the moment. So most of industrial pollution comes from industrial waste, and industrial waste now we're talking really about chemical waste is mostly treated by the traditional method, which is burning incineration. Most of it just especially like the harshest chemicals or the most concentrated ones are just being sent to be burned. This is extremely expensive and absolutely not sustainable, obviously producing a lot of co2 in the process.

Estelle Clerc:

Um, there are some other technologies, um, you know, electrochemical methods that are also trying to bring an alternative, that are very promising as well. But on the other side, you have all the bio-based methods in which we are right now, but so far they haven't really been so much spread and used in industry, apart from a few exceptions, because we haven't been able to find the right bacteria. And we haven't been able to find the right bacteria and we haven't been able to make them scalable enough, so that there's no real solution at scale on the market. So with this, basically, we really want to be able to bring a game changer in the market with bacteria that are not only good but stable enough and natural, because we don't want to bring GMOs and so on, at least not at the moment, because then we won't have any problems to put them also in nature.

Nicole Davidson:

Is the idea that eventually you could get rid of incineration completely and then you would just have the bacteria degrading these pollutants. Am I understanding this correctly? So?

Estelle Clerc:

replacing incineration is definitely one of our goals, but realistically speaking, we probably cannot replace all incineration.

Estelle Clerc:

Going towards a more sustainable treatment of chemical waste is probably going to be a combination of different methods. Probably incineration is going to remain unnecessary for certain types of chemical that are, I don't know, maybe so recalcitrant that there's no way bacteria can degrade them, something that is even worse than peep us. Maybe it doesn't even exist yet, but it could also be that the industry stored these chemicals into conditions you know, like into tanks and so on, that have so different and difficult pH that bacteria there's no way you can just make them grow. So maybe for this type of situations we will not get rid of incineration, but then for everything that is more wastewater treatment plants or environmental remediation I think we will see a rise of combinations of technology. For sure I really hope to see more and more biological solutions rise, hopefully not just us, but also in combination with electrochemical methods that are also completely that should be the best of my knowledge co2 free, just energy demanding to to make this a problem less of a problem.

Nicole Davidson:

So you've already explained, you cultivate these bacteria and then you can deploy them to degrade certain pollutants. Do you have an example of how you're currently using the bacteria, or do you have some industry partner you're already collaborating with? Yes, yes.

Estelle Clerc:

So I think this goes back to our a little bit, our business strategy here. So on one side, we're developing in-house all the PFAS degraders for, imagine, one community of bacteria for one specific PFAS, because there's so many PFAS, but there are some PFASs that are mostly used, like PFOA, PFOS and so on. So we're targeting these most abundant PFAS and this is carried out mostly in-house and this is in development right now. But on the other side, we have this bio-discovery as a service business unit where we partner with industries so that's what we call our clients, where they come and they say okay, we have this problem with this chemical. It's very recalcitrant. At the moment we are mostly burning it and we want you to find a solution for us, meaning a community of bacteria that can degrade it.

Estelle Clerc:

So now we are working with one in the field of agrochemicals and another one that is going to start soon in the field of pharma, and this is what we're doing. We're working with six months feasibility studies that really just allow us to show them that it's possible. We just give them the biodegradation rates at the end of these six to eight months and then they can just sit together, we can sit together, and then they can decide if they want to go for the full product development. This is going to be longer because it's the biotech phase. We need to get a commercial product at the end and then we talk about implementation.

Estelle Clerc:

Implementation may be into industry, into, like imagine some kind of bioreactor plugged to the exit of their treatment pipeline. Okay, the bacteria there are going to eat the waste, produce clean wastewater. Or it could also be directly put inside the wastewater treatment plant. But here we are also partnering with further collaborators to try to establish the best formulation of how do we put bacteria into a wastewater treatment plant without them to be killing the natural community or being killed. You know they need to be stable, so we're thinking about encapsulation or some kind of other type of formulation so that it remains viable on the long term.

Nicole Davidson:

So I imagine the more clients you work with, the more bacterial cultures you'll eventually have. Will it end up being like, I don't know, you have a catalog and people come and kind of order the bacteria that can degrade their pollutants.

Estelle Clerc:

This is my big vision to be like the Netflix of bacteria on demand. You know, pick and choose based on your needs and wishes Sounds fantastic. Of bacteria on demand. You know, pick and choose based on your needs and wishes Sounds fantastic. But so that was what I had in my mind in the first year of my PhD when I started to think about what we could do. Is this huge?

Estelle Clerc:

You know, I thought I want to develop the biggest catalog of bacteria that have that are metabolically on demand. You know, I think I've always been a bit ambitious, but then one of my colleagues told me OK, you need to focus on something because this is maybe a bit too wide. And then, yes, the pollution topic was pretty obvious to me. But yes, that's the idea is to build a catalogue of bacteria that industries can quickly get, because either it's for pollutants that are extremely widespread, like PFAS, like microplastics, or that have been mandated by these clients of ours. But from a business perspective, we cannot spread ourselves over too many pollutants. So this is why the PFAS now, because it's such a problem from so many industries and we know that if we bring it in-house and develop it in-house, we're going to have so many potential clients. It's therefore a broader impact, but then on the service business, it really has to be a specific problem mandated by an industry. But this will allow us to really grow our catalogue.

Nicole Davidson:

I find this whole idea and topic extremely fascinating. I admire you a lot for everything you've already achieved and done you a lot for everything you've already achieved and done. Pollution is such an issue, as we've been saying, but somehow, even though there's an urgency to it, it doesn't feel like many people are acting as if it's an urgent problem. What is something about pollution that we just don't get but absolutely should?

Estelle Clerc:

Yes, I like this question. I mean it's not fun. But what everybody has to realize is that pollution is not just something you read on the news. Pollution is, you know, in some places on the planet in your glass of water. It's something that just ends up in your own body and poison you. Basically, like I'm always going back to my favorite chemicals, the PFAS. But they have been measured in our bloodstream and it's you know. Also, it has been measured in when was it? Last year? It was in the newspaper from St Gallen that they measured high concentration of PFAS in cows that we end up eating. So I think the public has to more and more realize that this affects us on a very personal level. That will influence our own health in the long term. For example, also it has been shown that newborn babies have PFAS in their bloodstream. I mean this is crazy to me, because the mother probably was exposed and then just transmitted to their own newborn child.

Nicole Davidson:

Yeah, this is incredibly scary to think about. What do you think is something every individual person could do to tackle this issue kind of in the private sphere? I know it's a tough one, but um well, I mean it's.

Estelle Clerc:

It's very difficult now, if we're talking about everyday, everyday single actions, to try to, you know, reduce your exposure to these chemicals. Uh, one example could be don't warm up your food in a plastic Tupperware, because you just eat microplastics and there's many other things like that. But in Switzerland, you know, we're still quite privileged in the way that, for example, there's no, the PFAS concentration in our drinking water is pretty low, because we have extremely good regulations about concentrations that are allowed to be, you know, present into our drinking water, although it is present, but at very low concentrations compared to the rest of Europe in some places, or even the US.

Nicole Davidson:

Estelle, you're at least offering a solution to this problem. If we think of our world in, let's say, 20 years, do you think we will have the same amount of pollution, the same amount of issues, or do you think by then we might have maybe not won the fight, but have made some progress in this area?

Estelle Clerc:

I really hope so. I mean, now we are seeing more and more alternatives to incineration that are rising for treatment of this pollution. Not only and I'm really not only talking about us, there's many other startups and other firms that are developing their own solutions, maybe biological, but also electrochemical, whatever types of filtrations and so on and I really hope we can find a consensus to be able to combine all these technologies and act. And on the other side, we're seeing more and more changes in regulations about how much PFAS, how much microplastics and pesticides are allowed to be released from the industry into wastewater treatment plants and released further down in the environment. And now there's been changes very recently in Europe that are going to come in place in the very close future also in the US.

Estelle Clerc:

So I think we're going to see a very strong change. But industries also have to adapt and look for new technologies to respond to these mandated regulatory changes. But from my perspective, I do see that happening as well. So I want to believe that I can be positive about the future. But I cannot tell you if the pollution problem is going to be solved in 20 years and probably not completely, because there's always going to be also other type of substances that we will have to deal with unregulated and that we will have to find constantly solutions for.

Nicole Davidson:

You are one of the brilliant minds who are actually tackling this problem for maybe new scientists, new researchers or even students who don't know where their future is going to lead them yet. What kind of people do you think it takes to find solutions for these issues?

Estelle Clerc:

I think, ah, that's a very tough question. I think everybody is able to do it if they're, you know, if they're open to ask themselves about these kind of questions. I mean, I can definitely see that you cannot. Not everybody can have a startup idea. Not everybody wants to start a startup. I mean, I have to be a little bit crazy as well in a good way. Good way, but, but I think this we really should not portray this finding solutions for this big problem as something just for a certain group of people, because this is not something that is going to be beneficial for solving the problem. I think we should just be more open Everybody should be more open to think about how we could solve this on an individual basis. This is how we can make it move forward.

Nicole Davidson:

I would like more people to wake up and be aware of this massive problem, but I also want them to be hopeful, and I think you provide a lot of hope actually. So, for our listeners, how can they follow your journey and stay up to date with your work?

Estelle Clerc:

Yes, no, thanks for asking. I think it's always great to have some support. Also, it really helps us move forward and encourage us. Simply so they can find us on our website, wwwselexch, or on our LinkedIn. You can also find me myself on LinkedIn. This is where we publish a lot of things, where I'll be publishing some pictures of this podcast and, yeah, this is where you can get the latest news, otherwise always reachable also by email. You can find our contacts on the website.

Nicole Davidson:

Estelle, thank you so, so much for being here, for taking the time, and not only for being on this podcast, but really actually for doing the work you. I really admire you so much for it. I think you're such a great role model and we need more people like you, so thank you so much.

Estelle Clerc:

Thank you so much. I really appreciate the opportunity and I wish you all the best for your own podcast. Thank you you.

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