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Behind Augmented Diagnostics, people and values come first

The Who's Who of Augmented Diagnostics Experts.

Behind Augmented Diagnostics, bioMérieux's revolutionary approach, there are experts, men and women, who combine specialized profiles with strong personal values. Meet Hugo Bouquet, Joao André Carriço and Katleen Vranckx, based in France, Portugal and Belgium.

Frenchman Hugo Bouquet, 37, Program and Development Manager

 

 

Who's Hugo Bouquet?

With his bright green eyes, Breton Hugo Bouquet, Manager of the Data & Genomics program integrated into Augmented Diagnostics' strategy, is always one step ahead. Or even several. He thinks “tomorrow”, he thinks “strategy”, he thinks “team”. These three words come back often in his mouth when he talks about his job.

Since 2017, he has been part of the team chosen by bioMérieux management to think about the future of diagnostics in order to “create a new program”. At the time, he started with a micro-staff of just four! With one exception, the challenge was to open the door to the future! Today, by comparison, the Data & Genomics team numbers around 30.

“What interests me, is people and exploring potential.”

Hugo BOUQUET

In 2017, when the research program was launched, Hugo Bouquet was 30 years old, a member of the team at AES Chemunex, a Breton company acquired by the Lyon-based group in 2011, and had been running the design office and its 20 employees for three years. Young and already in a position of responsibility, he had an unconventional academic background behind him, which showed his character: “I had a first Baccalauréat S, but during my final year, I realized that my record wasn't good enough to do what I wanted to do. I took my baccalaureate again to improve my record and gain in maturity”.

After that, Hugo Bouquet went on to take a DUT in electrical engineering and industrial computing in Rennes, and a sandwich course at the Ecole Supérieure d'Électronique de l'Ouest-ESEO in Angers, before being hired by AES as the first design engineer in charge of electronics. This R&D position, based in Ker Lann, on the Bruz site near Rennes, was an innovative one. “Right from the start, there was everything I'm passionate about: people and exploring potential”. With this dynamic in mind, Hugo Bouquet has always worked passionately “to find solutions”, and has made his home in Brittany... 

With his wife Maud, also in the health sector, he became the father of three children, while continuing to invest in sport and supporting young people. This spirit, which has inspired him from the outset, has grown stronger over the years... “I try to talk to my 8-year-old daughter, to explain to her what I'm doing, so that it makes sense”. For example, he credits his father with playing a role, as he was a mechanical engineering teacher who talked about robotics.

“When I hear about product recalls due to contamination, I tell myself that our work is not neutral”

Hugo BOUQUET

For Hugo, meaning is also about finding alignment within ourselves and with others: “I work in the diagnostics sector. And when I hear of product recalls because of contamination that can have dramatic consequences, particularly on children, on babies... I tell myself that there's still work to be done and that our work is not neutral.”.

For years, between 2017 and 2021, Hugo Bouquet has been searching and groping. Augmented Diagnostics, this revolutionary approach, emerged “after meeting our customers for a year and a half to understand their problems, not their needs! If we'd asked them what they needed, they wouldn't have known how to respond,” he explains. "It's like the mobile phone.... At the time, before it was created, people explained that they needed more wire length”. Augmented Diagnostics is this same shift in thinking, “it's the transition to another dimension”, from traditional diagnostics to a synergy between expertise, data and genomics.

Hugo Bouquet also recalls that the adventure of designing Augmented Diagnostics began with “the Covid period which, from an initial constraint paralyzing all the dynamics in place, created new opportunities” and the industrialists who opened their doors to understand what was going on in their factories. “The situation was very tense during the pandemic, with staff restrictions, health constraints... We had to think differently”. 

To find solutions, Hugo Bouquet and his colleagues decided to reinforce the team with new skills in bio-computing and genomics. “And right from the start, it worked. For us, it was the green light!

“Augmented Diagnostics is the passage to another dimension”

Hugo BOUQUET

Continue Your Journey

The Who's Who of Augmented Diagnostics - Portuguese Joao André Carriço (Dr in Bioinformatics)

the Portuguese is happy to be working in the bioMérieux team. "I'm in a very confidential sector,” he says, ”I'm studying and I feel that, with what I'm doing, I'm continuing to train people, the bioinformaticians of tomorrow". This cutting-edge expertise cannot be learned at university. “There's phylogenesis, there's molecular epidemiology, but this is something else... It's a very precise crossroads

Behind Augmented Diagnostics, people and values come first  - Belgian Katleen Vranckx (Dr in veterinary science and microbiology)

Belgian Katleen Vranckx is discreet. She looks a lot and speaks little, but with precision. At 42, this Doctor of Veterinary Science and Microbiology, who lives in Belgium with her family, is one of Augmented Diagnostics' experts. “I belong to a small world, that of typing (in gene sequencing). I think there are between 50 and 100 experts in the world”.