THE ESSENTIAL
- From April 9, 2022, the Imagine Institute will organize monthly sessions open to the general public upon registration to do the Escape Gene.
- Between 2 and 6 people can participate in this immersive initiative, which lasts about an hour. Children over 6 years old can take part in the game.
On the fifth floor of the Imagine Institute, in Paris, a laboratory hides, at the end of a long corridor, a puzzle game called “Escape Gene”. For the first time, Élodie Dandelot, researcher who launched this immersive genetics initiative with three other doctoral students, is welcoming four new interns on February 25. One by one, the apprentices put on a white coat given by the scientific mediator. “Doctor Tartempion is absent. He left you a message. In this letter, he entrusts you with a mission. It consists in knowing if a young child suffers from a disease from certain elements and if this pathology is hereditary, announces the young woman.
Medical wandering, “a complicated period for the patient and the family”
The trainees sit next to a bench, namely a laboratory handling table. They examine the various examinations carried out by the child and read the conclusions drawn by health professionals. “There is a document that dates from 2019, another from 2020 and a last one from 2021. During these years, no diagnosis was made and the patient was not taken care of. “we call medical wandering. This can be a complicated period for the patient and the family”, develops Élodie Dandelot, leafing through the file of the young patient.
After these explanations, the time has come for the apprentices to search the topsy-turvy office of Doctor Tartempion. Their goal: to find a document on the family history of the disease to find out if the condition from which the child suffers is hereditary. At the same time, the trainees must be able to open a small white box containing a genetic code, that is to say the set of rules allowing the information contained in the genome of living cells to be translated. “Well done! You can move on to the next step”, asks the researcher, opening the office door.
“Isolating DNA from a cell” to be able to analyze it
The apprentices return to the laboratory and put on gloves before sitting down and following the DNA extraction protocol placed on the bench. “In front of you is lysis buffer, sodium chloride and 70% ethanol, which will allow you to isolate DNA from a cell to allow its analysis”, explains Élodie Dandelot. She gives each trainee a blood sample that has been frozen to preserve its quality.
DNA sequencing, a key step to identify the mutation and the gene
“Now, you have to locate the mutation of the gene at the origin of the disease from which the child is suffering. To do this, you need DNA sequencing which makes it possible to read the succession of letters that make up the genome, know all the information contained in the DNA. Doctor Tartempion was nice, he printed the sequence for you”, details the scientific mediator.
Once the apprentices located the genetic mutation, they were asked to identify the gene. To do this, they had to find his name using a table of the genetic code. The name of the gene is used to discover Doctor Tartempion’s gift on his computer. “Congratulations, you have accomplished your mission! You are no longer interns but researchers who can make their research public”, exclaims Élodie Dandelot.