Welcome to my data science and bioinformatics blog!! My name is Damiano Fantini. This website is meant to share some code snippets or some procedures I learned or developed while working on my projects. Please, don’t hesitate to contact me (damiano.fantini@gmail.com) if you have questions about one of my posts or if you are interested in my work!
Education and current position
I got my PhD in “Biomedical and biotechnological sciences” in 2010 from University of Udine (Italy). I then pursued my research career as postdoctoral research fellow in France (French Atomic Energy Commission – CEA) and then in the United States (University of Illinois, Chicago, USA). Since June 2016 I am working at Northwestern University (Chicago) and my research is focused on the molecular determinants of Bladder Cancer.
Lab and Programming experience
I have a solid know-how in bioinformatics, genomics, and molecular biology. My work has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including Nucleic Acids Research, Oncogene, Nature Medicine, and Cancer Research. A list of my publications is available here (PubMed link).
I have a strong experience with R and bioconductor. I use R for most of my work, in particular for accessing, manipulating and analyzing genomic data generated in our lab or available from TCGA and other online repositories. If you browse the posts of my blog, you should get the gist of the analyses I perform. I also wrote R extensions that are available on CRAN, GitHub, or AWS.
I recently completed a Data Science Certificate program at University of California at Irvine Extension (2016) and I learned the basis of Java and Python. I also used PHP and mySQL for developing web-based projects, such as http://www.labwizards.com and http://www.biotechworld.it. I am a linux-user (currently installed distro: ubuntu 16.04) and a linux enthusiast.
Who am I?
I am passionate about my work, and my career goal is to find a job in the field of Health-care Data Science and leverage -omics and biomedical Big Data to develop predictive models of clinical outcomes and patient responses.
My experience in research labs provided me with a solid foundation of experimental design and developed my attention to details. I really appreciate teamwork, I have a strong collaborative attitude, and I like to work in an environment where people communicate and exchange ideas. I firmly believe in the importance of continuing education, and I proved my learning agility by taking courses about data preparation, visualization, and new technologies and applying what I learned in my work.
When not in the lab, I like to practice sports. I like to ride my Trek Mountain bike, and I enjoy playing Volleyball (I was used to play indoor leagues when I was living in Europe). I also enjoy running. I completed 5 Marathons in the last 4 years, and I am currently preparing the next one (2018 Chicago Marathon, in October).
Do you want to contact me?
Sure, please! Just send me an email at: damiano.fantini@gmail.com