Spore.Bio

I’m happy to celebrate my first year at Spore.Bio 🎉 It’s been a crazy adventure but not always an easy one 👀 When I joined the company, everything was to be done ! We wanted a machine learning model to detect bacteria and a robust data pipeline… Except that we had close to no data at the time ! 🤷 Indeed, at Spore.Bio, we are building our own protocol to prepare biological samples 🦠 and our own optical setup 🔬 to create the data that is then analysed in data science 🤖 ! And to be honest, this is the part that I like the most about the project and the company 😄 As a data scientist, having complete freedom in the way the data is generated is a blessing because we have basically no limitations in what we sample, BUT it’s also a curse because no long term assumption on the data can be taken ! When designing our computer vision model, we used a funnel approach to stay as general as possible and keep our options open until the end. It was not always easy to forecast what would stay an invariant and we often had to refactor or rollback some features. I remember we started with a dataset of a few number of very heavy files (>1GB) for which we designed a very efficient caching system… database efficiency was not a subject at all for such few samples. But a few months later, we started working with a new optical setup producing a legion of small files ! We had to review our database architecture and refactor our data pipeline entirely 🥸 Designing our own biological and optical protocols is also a great occasion to learn more about other fields of science. I take this occasion to warmly thank my team mates Marine Pottier, PhD, Emilia Humeau, Massilia Hamdani, PhD, Marie Fournier and Maxime Mistretta, PhD. for everything that you taught me in optics and microbio 😊 If you want to solve new challenges everyday and work in a multi-disciplinary team, don’t hesitate to apply to our open positions !

I’m celebrating my one year at Spore.Bio ! 🥳 Let’s be honest what we are doing is fancy : amazing labs, big customers, shiny fundraisings… But it’s also hard. At Spore.Bio, we decided to show what’s behind the curtains and inspire others. To put things in context, you need to know that our machine detects bacteria, and we need to test it on as many micro-organisms as possible. To do this, we're building up the largest collection of microbial strains in our lab. 🦠 When we purchased our first strains, we encountered the ultimate nightmare for microbiologists: widespread contamination 😱 Our first instinct was to start all over again. We changed operators (I promise I'm not that bad at this), switched culture media, replaced agar plates, disinfected from floor to ceiling - basically, we started from scratch 🔄 The result: contamination still there (see, I told you it wasn’t my fault). After some investigation, we discovered the strains we received were already contaminated... damn 💀. And when you're on a tight schedule like ours, you really don’t want that, especially since it doesn't just impact us microbiologists, but also the optics and data scientists who are waiting for our results. No need to panic, we've managed to adapt, reschedule and keep things moving (because we don’t have time to waste ⏰). Our to-do list is as long as my arm, so we had no trouble figuring out how to keep R&D going while we were waiting for new (uncontaminated) strains. In the end, we didn’t change our approach. Yes, our schedules are tight, and they'll stay that way, but they're also flexible, because that's what's important in R&D. And that’s how we've become good at negotiating (Right, Marine Pottier, PhD?), and above all we've changed suppliers - lesson learned ! 😛 Oh btw, we're hiring, come struggle with us, it's fun ! 🎉

The big boss has spoken ! Listen to Mehdi Ghissassi's advice, Director at Google DeepMind and join us !

Spore.Bio is hiring two highly critical roles. Come change an industry, solve real-life painpoint and be part of the most ambitious deeptech team in Europe right now Please contact me directly : [email protected]

We couldn’t be more excited to introduce our three new hires! 🔥 Alexandre - With extensive knowledge in AI, microbiology, and the Olympic Games (okay, maybe more in AI), Alexandre is our new Data Scientist. His previous experience at Greentropism (a French startup developing pathogen detection solutions, sounds familiar, no?) brings a valuable asset to the team! Thomas - A regular in the DeepTech ecosystem, Thomas is a brilliant Data Scientist from Monk AI and (as if that wasn't enough) soon to be our first PhD student! Barely a week after his arrival, he was already publishing impressive results and making waves in the team! Valentin - Last but not least, Valentin joins us as a design intern. From motion design to 3D modeling, in just a month he has learned so many things, mostly by himself, and he’s rocking it! The bonus is that he has some good jokes. Sometimes... And luckily for us, they are far more talented in their fields than in climbing😉 Want to join Alexandre, Thomas, and Valentin in revolutionizing industrial microbiology (and sharing new discovery sessions)? We’re hiring! (Link in first comment)

Call to every microbiologist in the world You want to rebuild from scratch your industry ? You're tired of the status quo and slowness in your day to day job ? Join us in rebuilding everything from the ground up We're partnering up with Applied Microbiology International to spread the message

Machines deployed in factories, and three new machines in our team! Nathalie - After completing a PhD in physical chemistry, Nathalie specialized in electronics and is now excelling as our new mechatronics engineer. Nothing can stop her! Dmytro - Formerly at Hologic, Dmytro is a successful Fluidic Engineer. He joined us to unlock all the complex matrices we encounter and his expertise is already making waves in our projects. Lilwenn - Our dream first microbiology intern. Lilwenn is a quick learner and has become an indispensable part of not just the microbio team, but the entire company. In just a few weeks, they've already made a huge impact with their work and outstanding dedication. We can't wait to see what we accomplish together next! Curious to join Nathalie, Dmytro and Lilwenn at Spore.Bio? We're hiring! (Link in first comment)

What's the difference between a software engineer, a microbiologist and a data engineer ? They all decided to take the leap and join Spore.Bio ! Pierre-Baptiste Dupire is a brilliant software engineer. He has been the first hire of Omnidoc and built from scratch their successful product for 4 years. Clément Barbier is our new Microbiology Ops. After a PhD in Microbiology in Switzerland, he developed amazing innovative products for 3 years at Withings. Yash Kumar Jain wasn't afraid to leave India few years ago, move in Paris, and start to work with Algolia. We quickly identified his potential to help us build solid data pipelines Few weeks after these three joined, they are already overcoming complex roadblocks with an incredible mindset ! Do you want to join Pierre-Baptiste, Clément and Yash ? We are hiring ! (Link in first comment)

Our co-founder and CEO Amine Raji has been invited by the French Ministère de l’Économie, des Finances et de la Souveraineté industrielle et numérique to the first ever France-Qatar Investors meetup in Doha 🇫🇷🇶🇦 The level of excitement from investors all around the world around DeepTech is simply amazing Thank you to Bruno Le Maire, Qatar Investment Authority, Business France Middle East for the amazing opportunity

We're sure you hear a lot of stories at the moment about water contaminated with 🦠 ? Guess what, Louison Nallet and Amine Raji will give their views next week in Milan in front of a panel of corporates, VCs and academics Tune in !