Cryptobiotix addresses “Valley of Death” in microbiome research with new biobank technology

Cryptobiotix, a preclinical research organization specializing in microbiome modeling, has launched its biobank, a dedicated storage solution for cryo-stabilized gut microbiome samples that are sourced, characterized, and stored under proprietary conditions that preserve both structure and function.

Co-founded by Aurélien Baudot and Dr. Pieter van den Abbeele, Cryptobiotix was established to address the “Valley of Death” in preclinical testing — the slow and often inaccurate traditional methods that can jeopardize product development.

The new biobank directly tackles this challenge by eliminating the weeks, and sometimes months, of delays typically associated with sourcing donor samples.

According to the company, donor sourcing can typically extend project timelines by two to eight weeks. However, with tailored microbiome “vaults” built to client specifications, Cryptobiotics says those timelines shrink dramatically.

Beyond speed, the biobank is designed to dramatically improve data granularity. Instead of working with random microbiomes, Cryptobiotix clients can now access specific metadata, such as diet, delivery method, age, and country of origin, to correlate clinical results to individual microbiome traits.

“It gives us immediate access to not just a ‘baby microbiome,’” explains Dr. Van den Abbeele. “It provides us access to a C-section baby, breastfed, and born in a specific country.”

“This kind of clarity allows our partners to refine their experiment to the specific needs of their own business.”

This level of detail is crucial for consumer health companies, nutrition innovators, and pharmaceutical organizations, enabling better responder/non-responder analysis and more refined product design.

Next-generation microbiome testing

The biobank integrates with Cryptobiotix’s existing ex vivo modular SIFR (systemic intestinal fermentation research) platform, which simulates the entire gastrointestinal tract to understand the interplay between test products and the gut microbiome across individuals. Leveraging this platform, Cryptobiotix uncovered potential microbiome health benefits of sweeteners with Tate & Lyle last year. 

This combination of high throughput and validated predictivity helps reduce development time and risk for clients globally.

Cryptobiotix also expanded its research and development into disease-state simulation, including antibiotic-induced dysbiosis, acute infections, and Clostridium difficile modeling. 

This allows therapeutic developers to understand how interventions behave in both healthy and disrupted microbiomes, providing more clarity on how interventions truly behave in humans.

The launch of the biobank is a natural progression in Cryptobiotix’s long-term strategy. The company is leveraging the data generated to train smarter analytics, noting that “the real future lies in making sense of complex microbiome datasets in ways the industry hasn’t seen before.”

Cryptobiotix is also exploring how the biobank can support longitudinal sample tracking, enabling comparisons of the same microbiome over time as donors’ diets or health status change. This could offer more insights into microbiome stability, intervention reproducibility, and formulation refinements.

With its cryo-stabilization method, developed through hundreds of iterations, Cryptobiotix ensures the microbiome samples stored in its biobank “retain their identity,” allowing clients to revisit, reuse, and retest on demand.

“We’ve always focused on delivering actionable insights, with the highest standards of scientific integrity, all while keeping to the tight deadlines our clients require,” says Baudot. 

“We already had a streamlined process, but the biobank takes it to the next level. It’s a small internal improvement, but one that has an exponential impact on our clients’ workflows.”