Hello, and welcome to my blog. My name is Cosmin, and this space is where I share my journey connecting medicine with computer science.

My interest in technology started a long time ago. I graduated Tudor Vianu National High School of Computer Science, so I have a pretty solid background in informatics. Back then, I thought about following it up with a degree in Medical Engineering at the National University of Science and Technology Politehnica here in Bucharest, but I had a strong feeling that I couldn’t really engineer for medicine without first understanding medicine itself. It felt more logical to build a solid medical foundation first, and so I challenged myself and chose to go to Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy Bucharest.

After graduating, I looked for a specialty that was close to research and technology. I chose Laboratory Medicine for my residency because it’s a paraclinical field, focused on generating the objective data that patient care relies on. I knew this specialty would be the perfect environment to one day connect with my passion for informatics and technology.

Working in one of the largest molecular pathology labs at the Bucharest University Emergency Hospital, I was right where the data is generated, and when I saw how much information is hidden in sequencing results, my old passion for informatics came back stronger than ever.

Now, I feel ready for the next step - I am starting a Master’s in Applied Bioinformatics for Life Sciences to finally bring my two interests together.

This blog is my practical notebook for that process. I write about the bioinformatic workflows and tools I get to try out and different other projects I get myself into, explaining them in very simple terms. It’s for me to organize my thoughts, and for anyone else who finds it useful.

Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoy following along.