Portuguese Joao André Carriço, 47, Dr in Bioinformatics
“There's phylogenesis, there's molecular epidemiology, but this is something else... It's a very precise crossroads”
Leaving the academic world and its budget cuts
Joao André Carriço made the shift in his career from academia to industry in 2019 “when his research team” found itself facing budget cuts after three years' work. Of the four people near him, three students at the end of their PhDs, whom he had trained, were recruited by laboratories, there was no more money. “A doctoral student earns 980 euros a month, and a post-doctoral student in Portugal 1,500 euros. Whereas salaries in industry are at least three times higher”. He wanted to continue the work he had been doing for ten years, with the aim of making sequencing more accessible. “In the big institutes, they have the means to do sequencing, but there are dozens of smaller laboratories in Europe that can't afford bioinformaticians. I wanted to provide these small laboratories with an accessible expertise tool, a database-driven expertise platform”.
When bioMérieux approached him with a job offer, he realized that this objective was not just a pipe dream. There was a synergy of interests, and he agreed to join the Lyon-based company to work on sequencing analysis and results visualization.
“Thanks to this position, I was able to stay in Portugal with my wife, Filipa, who is a Doctor of Conservation and wouldn't live anywhere else but in her country, and my daughter Sofia, who is also passionate about science, while doing my research.”
“We're always faced with a moving, invisible target - the bacteria”.
For Joao André Carriço, integration into the team was rapid, with the Augmented Diagnostics project creating a buzz. His state of mind is still the same, marked by a profound humility. “We mustn't have any illusions of grandeur... We're always faced with a moving, invisible target, the bacteria.... And you have to study every day to advance the technology, to look for new algorithms, everything evolves very quickly.”
In this new world represented by industry, the Portuguese also discovered “industrialists, their objectives, their organization... So many things that are very different from the academic world and that move very fast”.
For the former professor, Augmented Diagnostics represents a real revolution: “We've gone from traditional global diagnostics to genomics, with extremely precise targeting. We've only just started, and we're on course for 15 years! Imagine the work and analysis involved in sequencing a fungus that represents 12 billion letters”.
He smiles: “That's what I like. I love precision. A passion that doesn't stop at the door of his laboratory and his computers".
In his spare time, he cultivates this trait for precision by taking up the hobby of board games, in which he has been involved since he was 15: “I love the strategy of games and armies to deal with combatants. I have thousands of miniatures that I paint myself”.
Although there are tournaments all over the world, Joao André Carriço prefers to focus on local games. “What I like is teamwork, not competition”. This is one of the features he appreciates in his day-to-day work at bioMérieux: “I work with a big team, with colleagues and customers who are... different. And all these people come from different cultures. When you meet them and talk to them, you learn that there isn't just one truth, but different ways of understanding and communicating, and that's what's so enriching and helps us move forward to find solutions”.
“Augmented Diagnostics is the transition from traditional global diagnostics... to genomics and very high precision”.”
