Q&A with Monica Faronato, Biologist @ LabGenius

Hey! Who are you and where are you from?

My name is Monica Faronato. I was born to Italian parents in Germany, moved to Italy when I was 3, and moved to the UK when I was 27. People call me Mo’!

What’s your profession, and how did you end up doing it?

I’m a biologist at LabGenius, but I started out shark fishing as a marine biologist! I then moved on to cancer research in Liverpool and London, where the long nights and weekends spent in the lab were worth it to make even the smallest contribution towards better understanding the mechanisms behind these diseases.

What do you do at LabGenius, and how does that contribute to its success?

I’m working towards the optimisation of an assay, which we use for drug candidate screening. Thanks to our multidisciplinary approach, we’ve been able to automate 90% of the process, making it faster, more efficient and more reliable than traditional methods.

Work of this nature combined with understanding biological pathways means that we can increase the chances of identifying successful candidates and pick the right ones for pre-clinical evaluation!

What’s the biggest challenge in the work that you do?

Biology is not at all straightforward. Experimental data takes a long time to extract — and then to replicate and verify — so it can be hard to be patient with that process, as well as difficult to communicate what the results actually mean with others!

What’s your proudest moment at LG?

Finalising important data sets in a very short period of time — that’s as much as I can reveal. Confidential! :)

Why should others join your team? Why should anyone work at LabGenius?

For someone with no background in machine learning, I’m astonished by the predictions our ML models are creating — and how accurate they have been (successful every single time).

Culture-wise, LabGenius is made of young scientists, who are all incredibly smart, but also humble and fun to work with.

How do you balance your career at LabGenius with life outside work?

Outside of work, I’m quite a private person, so I’ve been really pleased with the respect for these boundaries!

What advice would you give any candidates applying to work here?

Technical skills are obviously important and will be fundamental to getting you the job — that’s obvious. But your attitude and spirit will play a big part, so be yourself!