ESCP ALUMNI magazine - Special Issue 2022 - 54

Career ❙ Profile
By Théo Denmat
Super nano
Her findings could have earnt her a Nobel Prize. She could even be seen as the new
Louis Pasteur. Anne-Laure MOREL (MD 19), the founder of the Torskal company, wants to
revolutionise cancer treatment from Réunion. To do so, she uses the unexpected properties
of a miracle plant: Hubertia ambavilla.
Anne-Laure MOREL (MD 19)
founder of the Torskal company
I
t is 13-foot-high, yet it is invisible.
You could blindly move aside the
branches bending at eye level, with
their plain leaves and pale-yellow flowers.
It abounds on the dry slopes of the Piton
de la Fournaise, about 4,000 feet above sea
level. To put it nicely, locals say it is " endemic " .
According to the dictionary, it means:
" a disease regularly found among particular
people or in a certain area. " Hubertia ambavilla
seems like an invisible gangrene, a
silently and uncontrollably growing weed.
But it is not. It has been used for herbal
teas by old people since the 17th
century
to cure eczema and " bourbouille " ,
i.e., small red spots which spread on the
skin in tropical heats. In 2015, AnneLaure
Morel used it for medical research.
Since then, rumour has it that these soft
leaves and yellow flowers may be able
to cure cancer, as they have proved efficient
on lab mice. She is convinced it is
true. This soft-voiced 38-year-old woman,
who is unknown to the public, is deemed
a pioneer in her research field. She has
landed many European awards and has
54 ❙
become a key figure of the medical community.
Since her company, Torskal, was
awarded a €400,000 grant from the ERDF
(European Regional Development Fund)
in 2015, she has been working for Réunion
Technopole and in collaboration with the
Université Paris 13 laboratory, as well as
with researchers from Germany, India and
even the military Chongqing hospital, in
China. Therefore, she takes Chinese classes
every Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday from
5.30pm to 8pm. " Réunion is close to the western
and millenary Chinese medicine, " she
says. " Europeans and Americans are all about
extracting molecules from medicinal plants,
while. " Yet, her method is not shamanic
at all. To cure cancer, Anne-Laure Morel
uses the antioxidant properties of Hubertia
ambavilla as a super reducer to make gold
nanoparticles which are injected into the
patient's tumour. Under the irradiation of
infra-red rays, they heat up and kill the
cancer tumours without affecting the rest
of the body. This is a revolution because the
treatment targets the tumours while chemotherapy
comes with side effects. Morel
even calls her research " green nanochemistry "
as it is free of any synthetic chemical
product.
The efficiency of the experiments on mice
is amazing, especially for skin cancers, also
called " surface " cancers. Labs are just waiting
for the go from health authorities. As
for deep cancers (prostate, lungs, pancreas,
etc.), they will enter the preclinical phase
this year. " Nanomedicine is the future of medicine, "
she says about these positive outcomes.
" I even call it green chemistry, as it uses
eco-friendly biomolecules. It is our generation's
duty. "
ESCP Alumni Magazine Special issue ❙ 2022
People in Africa
and Asia focus
on the synergetic
power of the
molecules, which
is something I am
more interested
in.
From snooker tables to operating
tables
The fate of this Réunion-born woman is
one of a kind. Her childhood dream was to
" travel the world " but she found her way in
her home island. Her mother was the head
of a travel agency - what a coincidence. Her
father was a pioneer figure of home automation
on the island, but also the head of a
bar game company. In Saint-Denis, AnneLaure's
friends were jealous of her almost
magical house full of pinboards, snooker
tables and table football tables. It is where
her taste for new technologies comes from.
She had a simple but happy childhood,
though she got to know what cancer was
back then, as it hit some of her friends and
family members. She told her grandfather
she wanted to become a " saviour " . She just

ESCP ALUMNI magazine - Special Issue 2022

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