New Matter: Inside the Minds of SLAS Scientists
New Matter: Inside the Minds of SLAS Scientists
The EggSorter from Bionomous | New Product Award and Ignite Award Winner with Frank Bonnet
Our guest for this episode is Bionomous Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Frank Bonnet, M.S., Ph.D., to talk to us about the company's success at SLAS Europe 2023 by winning both the New Product Award for the EggSorter device AND winning the Ignite Award as an Innovation AveNEW company!
Bonnet walks us through what it was like to be named a double award winner and his team's SLAS Europe 2023 experience. He also shares the aquatic story that inspired the EggSorter and what makes it such an innovative product.
Key Learning Points:
- What makes the EggSorter new and innovative
- The inspiration behind the device and its use cases
- Why researchers are opting to use fish eggs model for research applications
- The future outlook of egg sorting market
Learn more about the EggSorter by visiting:
https://bionomous.ch/bioeggsorter/
Full transcript available on Buzzsprout.
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About SLAS
SLAS (Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening) is an international professional society of academic, industry and government life sciences researchers and the developers and providers of laboratory automation technology. The SLAS mission is to bring together researchers in academia, industry and government to advance life sciences discovery and technology via education, knowledge exchange and global community building.
Upcoming SLAS Events:
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- 20-22 May 2025
- Hamburg, Germany
Hannah Rosen:
Hello everyone and welcome to new matter, the SLS podcast where we interview life science luminaries. I'm your host Hannah Rosen, and today we are joined by Frank Bonnet, CEO and co-founder of Bionomous. Bionomous won the New Product Award and the Ignite Award at the SLAS Europe 2023 Conference. Welcome to the podcast Frank.
Frank Bonnet:
Thank you very much. Very happy to be here.
Hannah Rosen:
We're happy to have you. So to start us off can you just kind of tell us a little bit about your professional background and your areas of expertise.
Frank Bonnet:
So I graduated as a robotics engineer at the EPFL in Lausanne in Switzerland. And then I did a PhD, also in robotics. And basically, doing my PhD, I worked on the development of a robotic fish that was used for interacting, learning how the behavior of the adult zebrafish, specific type of fish that is used in research, and that leads to me designing a first robot to trying to also sort the eggs of this fish, and which leads to also developing this automatic instrument that we are now developing and commercializing.
Hannah Rosen:
Well, so wait. So a robotic fish. So like a fish that was designed to... a robot designed to trick the fish. Is that right?
Frank Bonnet:
Yeah. It was like, we called it also like a spy robot. And so the idea of the robot was that it would be, it would be kind of inserted inside a group of fish so that the other fish will believe it's one of them and then trying to also kind of lure the other fish like, changing their behavior or like hiding some, for instance, some leadership behavior, for instance, bringing the fish from one side to the other of the aquarium, and that was really, really fun.
Hannah Rosen:
That's really cool. I could go on a tangent of asking you so many questions about that alone, but that's not why we're here. So I need to focus, and so first the reason we're here. Congratulations on both of your wins at the Europe Conference. That's really exciting to have come home with two different awards. So how do you guys feel about winning both the SLAS New Product Award and the Ignite Award?
Frank Bonnet:
So it was of course a fantastic feeling. So we so first of all, it was really the objective for us to be present at SLAS this year because it's really the year of, we start the commercialization of our products. So we were targeting to go at this conference. We were also targeting to at least win one prize. It was, of course, something we were talking, but, to be honest with you, to won the two at the same time, so it's a great honor and privilege. And yeah, I'm very proud also of the team that has achieved all the yeah, it's really a reward for the entire team, for their work.
Hannah Rosen:
How was Bionomous’s overall experience? You know, obviously it's great to win awards, but, you know, there's more to the conference than just the award competition. So, you know, how was your general experience at SLAS Europe 2023?
Frank Bonnet:
Yes, for the Europe in itself. So one small anecdote, so we had to create a video to kind of participate to the Ignite award. I remember we spent half a day at the office running a video where we were eating fondue, for instance, like Swiss fondue, to show that how we are Swiss, how we are cool and having a fondue in our lab. I think the jury liked that. So I really recommend the people that may apply one day to be very creative with the video because it was also fun for the team. The Conference, of course, the fair, it was really nice experience for us. It was the first time we attend such a big event like the SLAS. To see, you know, other companies, some also start up, but also some very big and to see these companies that are building laboratory instruments was a fantastic experience to get some contacts with not only potential customers but also potential partners. So we have a great experience overall.
Hannah Rosen:
Good, good. And you were presenting on the Innovation AveNEW?
Frank Bonnet:
Yes, exactly. Yeah.
Hannah Rosen:
Yeah, great. How was that?
Frank Bonnet:
Actually, it was fantastic. Because we were, we were very well located. So we were right... if you just enter SLAS, you just go straight and it was the Innovation AveNEW. And we were, I think, 8 or 10 startups there. Yeah, the way it was presented was also nice. So it was, you know, I saw some other companies, you know, that build the booth, but for us it was kind of, everything organized so was also super practical in terms of setting the... where we have to set the small booth. It was not that hard and yeah, in terms of visibility it was great. We were really in the center of the fair and yeah, we were lucky.
Hannah Rosen:
Good, great. So let's get down to the brass tacks, so to speak. So what is Bionomous? What do you guys do and what is this egg sorter product that you won your new product award for?
Frank Bonnet:
So, as I was saying before like we really designed this product, but when we identify the need just on, you know, researcher colleagues that need to sort these zebrafish eggs and then understand like, it's a common fix. So just a few words about the zebra fish. So, so the zebra fish is a model of animal species that is a very good replacement for the mice because we use the eggs and the embryos, the larvae at very early stage, the eggs are transparent, so you can see all the embryonic development. You can use this for toxicity testing, and genetics, so there are many very great applications, also in cancer, so this is why a lot of people are adopting this model more and more. But they are facing with... have to handle a lot of fish eggs, so you have to imagine the fish facilities, about 10,000 fish and a fish can lay about 100 eggs. So you can count the number of eggs that can be potentially produced, and researcher they have to, where they collect these eggs they have to screen them, sort them, piped them. So this is why we, like, around 2017, 2018, we decide to, OK, we will create a device to automate all this process. Tabling more people using the zebrafish egg, but having in mind that this could potentially be used for other models. And then so we develop this and we're trying to to test it with customer so that it was kind of appreciated by the customer. We saw that there were new applications, so people contacting and say oh, I want to sort the frog eggs, seeds, other types of fish eggs, some beads, also with some mammal cells. This is why we could convince also investor to help us develop this product further, and end of last year we finalized the Series A and we finalized the... we launched the commercial version of the product, and this is where now we are. We are currently commercializing this.
Hannah Rosen:
Wow. So it's called the EggSorter, but it sounds like it can do a lot more than just sorting eggs.
Frank Bonnet:
We were wondering at some point if we need to have like, the SeedSorter? The EggSorter, which for the world is a general egg sorter, and at the origin kind of the technology in the name, we see at some point if it needs to be adapted maybe if we go to very specialized market.
Hannah Rosen:
Yeah, I mean, it opens up a lot of potential, I think, for you to expand out your products available. Yeah, that's great. So, you know, I would imagine also that this product, it has you seeing all these applications for, you know, research and genetics and drug treating. Could it be used for agricultural purposes as well? Like fish farming?
Frank Bonnet:
Uh, yes, exactly. So actually, we recently even got a small grant actually to kind of extend the possibility of... so, there is some difficulty. But one limitation we have with the current product is that it's real product was designed for research, for labs with these specific needs, while in the industry, they look more for higher throughput, something that can also handle higher volume. So in the lab, they want to sort maybe 5000 fish and egg. In the aquaculture fish farm, they want to sort 5 million or 50 million fish eggs so, not the same kind of dimension. But now we got some traction from this market. And so the story where we are lucky that we got a small national grant trying to finance developing further of a product to address the needs because they have the same needs that they need also to sort a lot of eggs. Not for research purpose, but more like for producing the fish to ensure that the meeting efficiency is good or so that they can also better selected the good eggs so that they are more efficient in the fish production. For other things also where this technology could be applied.
Hannah Rosen:
Well, that's great. So how did you come up with the idea to start Bionomous?
Frank Bonnet:
So it's building to what I said being. So it was really working on this fish robot project. So it was a European project where we had different partners. So we were in Switzerland, we were the partner developing the robot, and we had a partner in France kind of studying the fish, and we need to kind of integrate this robot into the fish. And so I was traveling a lot to them because I needed to go to install the robotic system. And every time I was arriving, yeah, it was like 10, 11 AM in Paris. And arriving there, what they were doing instead of using the robot that I presented, they were sorting these eggs by hand. So I said as a joke I said, OK, I will also develop the robot for that so that you can spend more time with the fish robot and put this data for my thesis, which I needed for practice. And so it sounded like a joke. And then we, in our lab, we said OK, let's try it and we'll see. And we are very lucky now in Switzerland, especially in this technology university, they like a bit crazy ideas and they help us a lot to trying to even if it's not really what was supposed to be doing, the product, they can sponsor us and try to, yeah, build around this idea and trying to then bring this idea to the market.
Hannah Rosen:
So it's kind of funny though cause you came up with this idea so that you can focus more on your fish robot and now your life is the egg sorting and it's like you're not even working on the robot anymore.
Frank Bonnet:
That's not something that I expected, but yeah.
Hannah Rosen:
Do you ever miss kind of doing that, more behavioral work with your fish robot?
Frank Bonnet:
Yes, when I, you know, when I have the, for instance a customer picky with or some bad investor not happy and all that stuff yeah, I would be very happy to be back in the lab. Happy if I have my PhD and with not so much worry, even doing a PhD, yeah, sometimes a bit of stress, but yeah, so I missed that, and on the other hand being an entrepreneur, having this experience of entrepreneurship is unbelievable. I learn more doing a startup than doing a PhD actually, like I can say so it's fantastic opportunity and yeah, so it's keep dragging me here a lot so yeah.
Hannah Rosen:
Wow, that's quite the endorsement for starting a company. Yeah, you know, because I always think of it as like, you know, turning into an entrepreneur, you start a business and it's a great way to kind of get your product and your ideas out there and to see more immediate effect of your work, but yeah, it's... to look at it as a great learning experience and opportunity as well. I think it's a great perspective, so. What makes, you know, you kind of talked a little bit about this EggSorter and all the different applications. So what is new and innovative about this product? You know, how is it changing the game in the egg sorting field?
Frank Bonnet:
So I think what we managed to find is really this type of niche in the kind of sorting areas. So there are a lot of actually devices that exist to sort cells or very small particles. There are some devices that exist to sort larger entities, but there is a range of these kind of small entities, around 1 millimeters, where there were actually no existing tools, there are no existing tools on the market to handle them. That and do this complete, like, automate this complete workflow of picking them, individualize them, screen them, sort them, then pipet. And so this is where we come as getting the unique, and of course, it's maybe not as a big market like, for instance, sorting sales, but still there is a demand, there is a market there and so we are quite unique in the fact that our technology is really applied for this field and quite unique for this field, but specialized for this field. And then we are in... so in this industry it is really the combination of different techniques such as microfluidics, AI, also for the sorting imaging, you know, mechanic electronics like everything integrated into a product that allows to make this product a good product for these markets.
Hannah Rosen:
Yeah, definitely. Are there any disadvantages to using the EggSorter over traditional methods for sorting out eggs?
Frank Bonnet:
Only disadvantage that we see is that people, of course, that so it's real process the goal is to have. Yeah, to automate the process that is currently done by hand. So the only problem we face that some people they still prefer to do by hand because, you know, they are more in control. It's something that they have done in the last 20 years and they know and so they're like, oh should I try this new product that is new or should I trust myself that I am more experienced, even if that product is faster? Maybe I can still do it, right. I would not say it's a disadvantage of this compared to the traditional method, but sometimes, you know, you have some people, they prefer to keep their standard or like, the way they have been doing and not maybe reluctant or to use new technology. Technology can brings a lot, but maybe they just want to, you know, spend more time also sorting these eggs by hand. It's also sometimes relief for the brain. I don't know so.
Hannah Rosen:
Yeah, I can understand that sometimes when you're just doing those repetitive tasks, it can be a nice break. You can just listen to a podcast or something and just turn your brain off.
Frank Bonnet:
And I’m trying to say that you're, you know, when you put that into the EggSorter and it does it to magically, you can also do a lot of things, you can go take a coffee or like, but it's not the same.
Hannah Rosen:
You can still listen to your podcasts.
Frank Bonnet:
You can still listen to your podcasts, yeah.
Hannah Rosen:
So can you then maybe go into a little bit of detail of how does this EggSorter work? You know, how is it able to sort these different eggs at such a high throughput?
Frank Bonnet:
To describe a little bit. So basically the first part of the EggSorter is really the individualization part. So we have a kind of microfluidics that allows to automatically grab the eggs 1 by 1 to really isolate them. And then once they are isolated then they are positioned in front of a camera which allows to have, you know, a single image of every entity that are at the same positions. So also very good tool to train some algorithms that can then, we'll be able to detect if these AI algorithms that will be able to detect these entities are healthy or not, have some markers, fluorescent markers or not, and many, many types of applications. And then once the there have been sort label then they will be outputted into different compartments like well plate, Petri dish. So that's the bit how it works, yeah.
Hannah Rosen:
Yeah, that's great. Do you see this technology enabling researchers to perform any experiments that maybe they wouldn't have been able to otherwise given, you know, manual process is taking too long. Or is there maybe potential in the future to expand on the EggSorter to enable different types of experiments or protocol?
Frank Bonnet:
So one great advantage that we saw even was not even expecting when we design the device, that they sort of produce actually a lot of data cause it actually screens all these eggs. And something that maybe the research or the user will not do automatically the device will capture an image of every entity and all this data can be very useful. First for instance, just for monitoring like, understanding really like, for instance the amount of eggs that are fertilized versus unfertilized, one to understand if the fish are healthy, there are also some maybe scientific values that you can get out of this data that perhaps you will not even care if you were doing by hand. But with the device, you have all this data available. So after the device pipetted you're well plate, then after two days you see something is wrong. Then you can go back to this data and you can understand what happened maybe with all this data that have been produced. And this seems to be very valuable for the researchers.
Hannah Rosen:
Yeah, it seems like more data is always a good thing right? That's great. So we've talked a lot about sort of some big picture, you know, in the future things that you might be doing with EggSorter or, you know, other products that could spin off. What are you looking to accomplish in the next year in terms of this EggSorter product?
Frank Bonnet:
Our goal this year is really to bring EggSorter to the market and trying to have our first customers that are happy customers that work with the device that we can understand also how they work with the device, what is really the value of the product. So this is really the, this year we have this first commercialization year and then it's also about, in terms of business, Europe, and it's also to know, theorize back where we can apply this technology and which areas. So we still are focusing on marketing and customer research on British users, but still we, as I said so we already have some people using it for for sorting flower seeds for instance or from eggs or other things. And so we have these early adopters on this field, but we want to kind of understand more what is the potential of our technology for these new market opportunities?
Hannah Rosen:
Yeah, that's exciting. And so then do you think, you know, or is it maybe it's too soon to tell, and if it is, that's fine, but do you think that you guys will be coming out with other products in the future?
Frank Bonnet:
Yes so that's what we hope, yeah. So maybe other new product awards.
Hannah Rosen:
That's what we love, we always love when our winners come back and they compete and we have some that set goals of winning a new product award every year, which is extremely ambitious. And so yeah, that's always exciting to have you guys come back and compete again. So yeah. So if there are any researchers out there who are listening and are interested in using the EggSorter for their work, is there anything that they need to know before they can get started?
Frank Bonnet:
Well, they can of course contact us or go to our website to get more and we will be happy. So what we provide also a learning process. So we do also, this is something that is more important that we do some online demo of the product so people can also better understand how it works and how they can apply that with also some on site demo where we go to the customer and install the device for four months so to evaluate it, so t's not that you need to buy or not. We're trying to make sure also during this, especially because it's a new product, that the people, they have the tool that they expected and they are able to evaluate also during this time. So yeah, and it's also just about the device itself. It's a great portable device. It sounds very, it's quite small. It can fit in the lab bench. So yeah, so don't hesitate to reach to us if you want to know more.
Hannah Rosen:
That's great. And are there any major changes, so if they have pre-existing protocols for their EggSorting processes, are there any major changes that they're going to be aware of?
Frank Bonnet:
So we have kind of validated the EggSorter to not, you know, arm or create some changes, morphological change or any change to the entities that we are sorting. So in other words it’s quite unlimited, it's like zebrafish eggs, seeds, that we tested so in general the device is really, yeah, from the moment you have your samples that you put on the device and the moment you have your samples that are plated, like everything that is from being before or after will remain the same. It's just really this manual process that will be automated with the device.
Hannah Rosen:
Wow, fantastic. Well, this sounds like a really, really cool product and obviously our judging panel thought so as well and it's been really exciting for me to get to sit down and talk to you today and learn a little bit more about this. So thank you so much for joining us today, Frank and we really look forward to seeing Bionomous at future SLAS conferences and seeing you guys compete for more awards.
Frank Bonnet:
Yeah. Thank you. And that was really a pleasure to be here and share a bit about what we do at Bionomous.
