In the era of Elon Musk, Steve Jobs and Stephen Hawking, names like Marie Curie and Louis Pasteur may not be top of mind when you think of innovators changing society. But, their impact remains immeasurable still today. Curie discovered polonium and radium and championed the use of radiation in medicine, earning a Nobel Prize in 1903 for her work. Pasteur, a French chemist, pharmacist, and microbiologist, is renowned for his research in vaccines and is credited with developing the first rabies vaccine in 1885.
A century ago, Curie and Pasteur could not have imagined the profound impact their work would have on the world—from the widespread use of X-rays in healthcare to the development of vaccines for treating and preventing diseases. They also could not have foreseen the inspiration they would provide to generations of innovators — scientists, medical professionals, and researchers — leading to even more groundbreaking work today. However, that inspiration is precisely what Claire Biot found in Curie and Pasteur.
“Pasteur was not only doing outstanding academic research but cared a lot about the applications of his findings to the real world, which is why we have the rabies vaccine,” said Biot. “This is what we would call translational medicine today, and it’s an important driver for me: not only doing exciting science, which is intellectually stimulating, but also improving the real world, which speaks to my heart.”
When it comes to Curie, it’s her resilience and passion for innovation that inspired Biot.
“Marie Curie had a challenging childhood, it was very difficult for her to get access to advanced education, but she never gave up, she found her way through,” Biot said. “She taught us courage and resilience. And she had a brilliant mind. Creativity and serendipity fueled her solid scientific foundation.”
Biot added: “When I’m thinking about these 2 great scientists, this also brings to my mind Katalin Kariko, very recent Nobel Laureate in 2023 for her work on mRNA vaccines within Academia but also at BioNTech. She comes with the same dedication to real world application of her academic research than Pasteur and with the same difficult childhood, courage and resilience than Marie Curie!”
As Dassault Systèmes’ Vice President of the Life Sciences & Healthcare Industry, Biot has a relentless curiosity for the unknown. Her career has focused on breaking down silos in healthcare and fostering collaboration to improve the lives of both patients and medical professionals.
The power of virtual twins – and collaboration
“Every minute counts” is how Biot felt when the pandemic hit in 2020, a year after she’d joined Dassault Systèmes, and it only fueled her passion for collaboration and curiosity to solve some of the world’s most pressing challenges. “For me, healthcare has always been this very stimulating sector where the purpose and need are obvious, and the way to get there is intellectually stimulating,” said Biot. “I would say that COVID made it even more obvious, because the world stopped until diagnostic tests and vaccines were made available.”
The impact of the coronavirus was felt around the world, and drivers in healthcare were vastly accelerated. From the move toward patient autonomy to access to life-saving vaccines and the shift toward clinical trials taking place in patients’ homes or via telehealth – the industry changed significantly. Biot and Dassault Systèmes led many of the changes – from fully digitizing most vaccine trials in record time, to repurposing ventilators for multiple patients at once. For Biot, the commitment to supporting Dassault Systèmes customers during the pandemic was paramount.
Navigating the pandemic was something Biot was thrust into, but since joining Dassault Systèmes, her primary focus has been on the development of virtual twins—a scientifically accurate digital duplicate of a real-world object—to help advocate for the future of personalized healthcare.
“When I was in school, I had a teacher ask me if I cared about curing patients or if I cared more about understanding why they are sick,” said Biot. “They are interconnected, but I realized that I cared more about understanding why they are sick so others could help cure them. That’s part of the reason I’m at Dassault Systèmes.”
Biot’s interest in virtual twins blossomed when she joined Dassault Systèmes. “The first example I had of virtual twins was actually with car manufacturers,” Biot explained. “They use virtual twins to simulate crash scenarios. It saves time, it saves resources, and it allows them to explore more possibilities. And in healthcare, that’s what we want to achieve.”
Virtual twins in healthcare hold vast potential, and Dassault Systèmes is leading the innovation wave with The Living Heart Project, which Biot points to as a prime example of the power virtual twins can have in diagnosis and treatment.
The Living Heart Project aims to create realistic digital simulations of the human heart to improve cardiovascular care and research. The project leverages the 3DEXPERIENCE platform to model and simulate the heart’s behavior, enabling medical professionals to study its function and test treatments in a virtual environment.
For Biot, the collaborative focus of The Living Heart Project – which has been replicated for other organs, like the brain and eyes – is where the magic happens.
“Collaboration is key. Take cardiac disease, for example. It’s a disease, so there are doctors, surgeons, and cardiologists who are going to look after the patient. Radiologists are involved too, because they need to take MRI or CT scans to help evaluate the disease,” Biot explained. “But at the same time, your heart is a pump, and it’s also about fluid dynamics and electromechanics, and you need someone knowledgeable in math. Some doctors may need more support to fully understand the calculations. The point being, there are a lot of different disciplines that can now collaborate on a virtual twin to help find the right treatment.”
Biot’s projects are not just focused on assisting doctors and medical professionals with treatment options and diagnoses; they also aim to improve the patient experience. One such project is VORTHEx, a collaboration between the Hartmann Institute of Radiology and Dassault Systèmes, designed to help patients undergoing cancer treatments. The primary goal of the project is to help patients feel more comfortable with their treatment by providing a virtual experience that reconstructs all the technical and protocol components of the treatment in 3D.
“As soon as patients learn they will undergo radiotherapy, they can use a VR headset to explore the treatment room and the control room,” Biot said. “This immersive experience educates patients about the equipment and simulates the sensations of the treatment, including the robot’s movements and its loud sound.”
All of this innovation helps improve the patient experience, as many have anxiety when it comes to treatment.
“I may be an executive working in healthcare, but I’ve also been a patient,” Biot said. “Being a patient in a siloed environment like healthcare and without much knowledge of the technology being used can be intimidating.”
Fulfilling her curiosity in healthcare
Biot’s path in life can be defined by an innate curiosity to learn about the unknown. Her path to building a more equitable healthcare system didn’t start when she joined Dassault Systèmes; it began much earlier in her life, and really exploded when she attended École Polytechnique, a leading French institution that combines top-level research, academics, and innovation.
“As the name would suggest, the focus was on “Poly-techniques”, which means multiple disciplines,” she said. “They want you to explore different areas because they believe that a good brain is one that has the ability to stretch from one discipline to the next, and that real innovation takes place at the boundaries of those different disciplines.”
Biot didn’t have healthcare on her mind at first – when she began her studies, she wanted to become an astrophysicist. “I thought it was super cool to understand why the planet Earth arose. What happened at the Big Bang? What more could we find out? What other planets are out there?”
But the “aha moment” in her life – the realization of what she wanted to focus on – took place when she attended a life sciences class.
“I realized I wanted to build my career around innovation in life sciences and healthcare. It’s very exciting and fast-paced, from the discovery of DNA to genomics sequencing, to vaccines, and so much more,” said Biot. “The space changes so quickly. Life sciences today are not what they were 10 years ago, or what they will be 20 years from now, and I find that very stimulating from an intellectual standpoint. Plus it’s highly connected to applications to the daily life – the real world – finding new cures for patients. So it speaks to my heart.”
Giving back and looking ahead
Today, Biot is continuing to channel her passion and inspiring future generations, much like Curie and Pasteur did for her.Biot is an executive sponsor of Rise Up, a leadership development program at Dassault Systèmes.
Each year, about 100 Dassault Systèmes employees are selected to join Rise Up. They come from all over the globe and work in different functions within the organization. “It’s a 10-month program where they go through self-assessment, define their own leadership style, receive mentorship, and more. It’s incredibly exciting to help foster that each year,” Biot explained.
It’s not just the mentorship Biot enjoys, but the self-reflection too.
“I love the notion of giving back more and more and really enjoy guiding young leaders. You learn so much,” she said. “It seems like you look at yourself in the mirror when you listen to them to some extent. It gives you this notion that you’re not alone, and that you have a cohort of people who have the same goals.”
As for what’s next for Biot? It’s all about staying curious and learning. She currently sits on the board of Mauna Kea Technologies, which provides real-time visualization of cellular structures, at the microscopic scale, enabling physicians to make informed decisions across various medical specialties.
“It’s a very exciting project for me,” Biot said. “I support them with their go-to-market strategy and thinking through how to embed more AI systems into their functionality because they collect so many images. It gives me a different perspective on business models.”
Biot has dedicated her life’s work to improving healthcare, both for patients and medical staff. “If I had to boil my hope for the world into one sentence, it would be to achieve sustainable healthcare for all, with enjoyable working conditions for healthcare professionals.”
Biot isn’t the only one helping reshape the healthcare industry. Check out some other humans driving progress.
Dassault Systèmes is a catalyst for human progress. We provide business and people with collaborative virtual environments to imagine sustainable innovations. By creating virtual twin experiences of the real world with our 3DEXPERIENCE platform and applications, our customers can redefine the creation, production and life-cycle-management processes of their offer and thus have a meaningful impact to make the world more sustainable. The beauty of the Experience Economy is that it is a human-centered economy for the benefit of all – consumers, patients and citizens. Dassault Systèmes brings value to more than 350,000 customers of all sizes, in all industries, in more than 150 countries. For more information, visit https://www.3ds.com