Thierry Sengstag
- Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics
- Bioinformatics Core Facility
Switzerland
Thierry Sengstag obtained a MSc in solid-state physics from the Ecole Polytechnique F?d?rale de Lausanne (EPFL, CH) in 1994. He then conducted a research in nuclear engineering at Paul Scherrer Institute (near Z?rich, CH) for which he obtained his Ph.D. in 2001. During this period Thierry investigated the behavior of nuclear reactors in severe accident conditions, and he obtained, in parallel, an accreditation as chief of operations for a research and teaching reactor operated at EPFL. Thierry is thus the only nuclear reactor pilot in ACGT.
After being hired as a post-doctoral fellow at TU Delft (NL) to work on the thermohydraulic stability of nuclear reactors, Thierry was appointed group leader of the thermohydraulics group, supervising a staff running two experimental facilities and a small group of researchers.
In January 2003, Thierry reoriented his career towards life sciences, and started working in the domain of bioinformatics and biostatistics, jointly at Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research (ISREC) and at Swiss Institute for Bioinformatics (SIB). As a member of SIB?s Bioinformatics Core Facility, his activities were to support researchers and technological facilities in the French-speaking area of Switzerland in the analysis of the data they obtained with the (then) new technology of microarrays.
Working closely with the experimental facilities producing the raw data, he helped understanding the strengths and weaknesses of this technology, from low-level technical aspects, such as noise levels in scanners, to the statistical design of biological experiments.
Given his affiliation, the research he was involved in had a strong emphasis on the discovery of the molecular mechanisms causing cancer. Thierry was thus a natural candidate to join the ACGT project.
In ACGT, Thierry is bringing the view of data miners and bioinformaticians in the design of the tools developed in support to clinical research. In particular, he is translating the clinical scenarios provided by medical end-users into concrete use cases that the technical partners of the project can implement. He is a member of the ACGT management board and of the technical management committee, and he is coordinating the activities of evaluation and validation.
In his free time, Thierry practices mountain hiking and motor biking, and collects science and history books.