A Bioinformatician’s Career Path: Catching Up with Tommi Rantapero
Liquid biopsies, cancer genomics and in-house pipeline development: these days, senior bioinformatician Tommi Rantapero’s work covers a lot of ground. When we first interviewed him in 2020, he had just completed his doctorate. We caught up with him to hear how his career path in bioinformatics has developed and how Genevia has evolved since he joined in 2017.
What’s your current role, and what kinds of projects do you mostly work on now?
I work as a senior bioinformatician, mainly supporting our client projects by planning and carrying out the analyses, and part of my time also goes to internal IT support. These days most of my client projects relate to cancer genomics and genetics, and they usually involve DNA sequencing, whether whole-genome, whole-exome or targeted sequencing.
How has your role grown since you joined Genevia? Are there skills or responsibilities you’ve taken on that a PhD didn’t prepare you for?
Alongside the analysis work, I’ve taken on responsibilities in general IT support and in developing our in-house analysis pipelines. During my studies I rarely had to install the tools I used, let alone build pipelines around them, so this was completely new territory for me.
Dr. Tommi Rantapero
How has Genevia changed since you joined in 2017, and what has stayed the same?
What hasn’t changed is probably the easier part to answer: our focus is still on helping clients analyze and interpret omics data while keeping up with the latest technologies. What has changed is how we do the work and the level of professionalism we operate at. A big reason for that is that in recent years we’ve been fortunate to recruit top experts in their fields, people who bring not only deep expertise but also a real positive influence on our company culture.
What’s one thing you wish researchers knew before they start an omics project?
Be clear about the actual question you’re trying to answer with the experiment. It may sound obvious, but over the years at Genevia I’ve worked on projects both with and without a clear objective, and the most successful ones have almost always been those where the goal was well defined from the start. Many factors contribute to a project’s success, of course, but I see a clear question as one of the foundations.
Is there a recent project you’re particularly proud of?
Over the past few years I’ve had the chance to work with liquid biopsy data, which I find very exciting. I believe liquid biopsies hold great potential for cancer diagnosis and treatment in the coming years, and I’m proud to have made my own small contribution to that research.
Thank you, Tommi, for taking the time to share your thoughts and for the expertise you bring to the team every day. We’re looking forward to seeing where the next six years take you.
Planning a cancer genomics or DNA sequencing project? We’d be happy to help, from defining a clear research question to carrying out the analysis. Get in touch to talk it through.
Contact us
Leave your email address here with a brief description of your needs, and we will contact you to get things moving forward!
