Blood of worms from Brittany helps Crans-Montana fire victims

The Frenchman behind a pioneering gel used to treat burn victims after the Crans-Montana bar fire is in line for a top prize for European inventions.

Inspired by his research into the medical benefits of sea worm blood, Dr Franck Zal first tested the product in 2023 on a 33-year-old victim of a boat fire in Loire, who sustained second- and third-degree burns over 85% of his body.

It was used successfully again on victims of the 2026 Swiss bar fire, with many survivors speaking of their gratitude as they left hospital.

The product is developed from a protein in the haemoglobin of lugworms, which has a high oxygen-carrying capacity. It offers targeted, continued oxygenation to the wound.

Called HEMHealing, it proved so effective in promoting burn healing that it was given approval for use in Europe before final testing was completed under a humanitarian clause.

Inspiration from the beach

Dr Zal came up with the idea, alongside other worm blood products, after wondering how lugworms could survive for so long out of water.

Lugworms, which have gills, live in sandy tidal flats but survive when the tides go out for up to six hours at a time.

When The Connexion first reported on Dr Zal in 2022, his company, Hemarina, had just received approval for a product to keep donor organs fresh, greatly extending the length of time they can be preserved before transplantation.

Dr Zal has now been nominated as a finalist for the European Inventor Award, presented each year by the European Patent Office.

“Just being nominated has made me very happy,” he said.

“I have devoted 25 years of my life to this research and company, and it is recognition that I have managed to help build something.”

He said that the success of the burns gel has been especially rewarding.

“It works by producing a very oxygen-rich environment on the wound. This makes up for the lack of oxygen because the capillaries, which usually supply blood, have been burnt away.

“Sometimes after only one or two applications there is already granulation, which shows that new skin is forming.

“Previously in these very difficult cases – where people were so badly burnt that their wounds could not start to heal – it was not uncommon for doctors to have to amputate.

“It’s astonishing and it’s all because of the incredible properties of these worms.”

Recalling the start of his research, Dr Zal said: “It was one of those moments which happen in science – I was in my laboratory at Roscoff, looking out at the beach and the sea and seeing, as usual, people digging for worms to go fishing. I suddenly thought ‘how do they survive so long out of water?’

“Most humans can only hold their breath for at most two or three minutes, and yet these little animals, which have been on Earth for 450 million years, can last six hours. It is incredible.”

Company set up

His research showed that haemoglobin in the lugworm’s blood is not attached to red blood cells as it is in humans, is 250 times smaller than the haemoglobin in human blood and can carry 40 times more oxygen.

His discovery prompted the CNRS and Sorbonne University, to which his laboratory was attached, to allow Hemarina to become a “spin-off” company in 2007.

In 2013, the firm bought a fish farm off the Vendée coast to breed worms in the strict conditions needed for pharmaceutical products.

The worms are frozen before being processed in Tours (Indre-et-Loire) to extract the molecules responsible for their oxygen storage capacity, turned into a sterile, medical-grade material in a facility in Belgium and then returned to the company’s factory and headquarters in Morlaix (Finistère).

More products are in the pipeline, including a therapeutic oxygen carrier that could help patients with sickle cell disease and some cancers.

Another potential use is to treat some bacterial infections in the mouth by flooding areas where anaerobic bacteria thrive with oxygen to kill them.

Other developments include working with the US Navy on a powder that can be mixed into a solution and injected into badly wounded patients to boost oxygen levels to the same extent as a 450ml blood transfusion.

Another product could treat gas gangrene in the field. This severe form of gangrene, common in World War One, has reappeared on the battlefields of Ukraine because of difficulties evacuating wounded soldiers under fire from drones.