7 examples of successful science communication in biotech and medtech

1. CRISPR-Cas9, the “molecular scissors”

When Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2020, the general public already knew what it was about. Since 2012, the tool has been described everywhere as molecular scissors guided by an RNA: an image that explains in three words what the enzyme does (cut DNA) and what makes it new (it cuts at the chosen spot).

What works: the analogy is about the function, not the shape, and it extends naturally (people then speak of a spell-checker for base editing). Its limit: scissors suggest absolute precision, whereas off-target cuts are precisely the object of research. The best content says so from the second sentence.

2. Messenger RNA explained as an instruction manual

In 2020 and 2021, messenger RNA vaccines posed a science communication challenge on a national scale. The explanation that prevailed: the vaccine does not contain the virus but a set of instructions, a temporary manual that cells read to make a protein, then destroy.

What works: the image directly answers the dominant fear (“does it change my DNA?”) by showing that the message stays in the cytoplasm and disappears. This is a general principle: good science communication starts from the question the reader is really asking, not from the structure of the subject.

3. Three Minute Thesis

The competition, held in France since 2014 as “Ma thèse en 180 secondes”, asks doctoral students to present their subject in three minutes to a non-specialist audience, with a single slide. Finalists never talk about their method first: they start with a problem everyone recognizes, then show how their work addresses it.

What works: the time constraint forces you to choose one idea. For a company, it is the most useful exercise before a trade show or a fundraising round: if the technology does not fit in three minutes, the message is not ready.

4. Imavita: a preclinical imaging CRO told through its clients' questions

Imavita is a preclinical CRO specializing in advanced imaging. Its website presented its technical modalities, which spoke to specialists but not to the pharma R&D managers who buy a study. During the redesign, we reorganized the narrative around what a sponsor wants to know: which model, what timeline, what data quality, which team.

What works: the science communication took nothing away from the precision, it changed the order of the information. The technical details remain available, one level down. The full case is presented in our work.

5. Veinsound: two levels of language for the same treatment

Veinsound is developing a non-invasive treatment for varicose veins. Two audiences, two vocabularies: phlebologists expect the mechanism, the data and the indications; patients want to know whether it hurts, how long it takes and what changes compared with surgery.

What works: instead of an average text that satisfies nobody, the content was built in two layers that answer each other, with the same figures. This is the rule of multiple audiences: you do not simplify once, you explain several times.

6. Amarok Biotechnologies: a brand that says what the laboratory does

Amarok Biotechnologies is an in vitro research and testing laboratory. The redesign of its brand started with a science communication question: what must a prospect understand in five seconds on the home page? The answer guided the naming of the offerings, the visual identity and the hierarchy of messages.

What works: science communication is not reserved for articles. It applies to a logo, a tagline, the order of the items in a menu. A readable scientific brand is already an explanation.

7. The mechanism of action diagram in one image

In the pharmaceutical industry and medical devices, the mechanism of action diagram has become a format in its own right: a single image, a target, an action, an effect. The best examples use three colors at most, a ten-word caption, and no element that does not serve the idea.

What works: the image is designed like a sentence, with a subject and a verb, not like a shrunken conference poster. Its limit: a simplified diagram does not replace the data; it introduces it. The link to the publication or the trial must always be one click away.

What these seven examples have in common

• A single idea per piece of content, chosen according to the audience's real question.
• An analogy or an image about the function, with its limits stated.
• Orders of magnitude rather than raw values, with the raw values accessible one level down.
• A hierarchy of information that follows the reader's reasoning, not the discipline's outline.
• A review by a scientist in the field before publication.

Going further