“I was hosted in the Clinical Chemistry lab, led by prof. Tsatsanis, at the University of Crete School of

Medicine (UOC). During my stay at UOC, under the supervision of Elina Paflioti I had the opportunity to learn and assist to several laboratory techniques, such as cell culture preparation, cell counting using a hemocytometer, MTT colorimetric assay to assess the cytotoxicity of drugs and chemical compounds, polymerase chain reaction (PCR), and gel electrophoresis. In particular, the lab techniques I was able to follow were applied within an experiment to determine, through an MTT assay, the potential cytotoxicity of different compounds on macrophage cell lines and, in a different experiment, to check genotyping of wild type (wt) and knockout (KO) mouse samples. Overall, my experience in Tsatsanis lab was particularly valuable as it allowed me to gain a deeper understanding of the laboratory procedures that generate the raw data I analyze daily as data scientist. Given the close relationship between data generation and data analysis, the activities are specifically part of WP4, which is inherent in the development of Standard Operating Procedures for data production and analysis. From September 16 to 18, I also participated as an invited speaker to the joint MSCA SE CardioSCOPE / COST Action AtheroNET training school “Omics for Precision Medicine in ASCVD,” where I contributed with a talk (“Machine Learning for Omics Data”) and a workshop (“Practical Machine Learning Analysis Downstream of an RNA-Seq Workflow”).”

Marco Chierici, Senior Data Scientist & Bioinformatician at the Bruno Kessler Foundation