Today, let’s introduce Dr. Morten Vinther Lund, from Partner QIAGEN Aarhus (Denmark)
Morten Vinther Lund is a Senior Bioinformatics Scientist at QIAGEN Aarhus, Denmark, the world’s leading software provider for Next Generation Sequencing data analysis. Let’s find out more about him and his experience with MetaFluidics in this latest “Meet the MetaFluidics team” interview!
- What is your professional background?
I was educated as a physicist with a Master’s degree from Aarhus University, Denmark. After this, I was accepted on a Ph.D. program at the same university. My Ph.D. research was in experimental nuclear astrophysics studying low-mass exotic nuclei close to the proton dripline relevant for understanding super-novae’s. As part of my Ph.D., I worked at CERN, Geneva, Switzerland, in a prolonged period of time and this is also where most of my experiments were performed.
After finishing my Ph.D. I accepted a job at QIAGEN Aarhus as a Senior Bioinformatics Scientist. In this position, I take an active part in developing the CLC Microbial Genomics Module and other software. I have worked at QIAGEN for 3 years now.
- What things give you the greatest satisfaction at work? What things frustrate you the most?
For sure, the most frustrating bit of my work is debugging the software when the error message gives you no clue about the cause. Sometimes I end up spending hours finding the mistake. However, the greatest satisfaction is then to see a finished product being sent out to the customers and to hear customer feedback on the product. It is always a great help when customers take their time to provide input for improvement.
- What is exactly your role in MetaFluidics?
I am taking part in developing the bioinformatics tools and pipelines that will help support the researchers. I act as a developer, a bioinformatician, and a test manager on the Microbial software project at QIAGEN Aarhus. We have the development and maintenance responsibility of the CLC Microbial Genomics Module, the CLC Genome Finishing Module and the CLC MLST Module.
- Will the MetaFluidics project change your career prospects?
The MetaFluidics project has certainly been an enormous help and inspiration in my current job at QIAGEN. Since I started working in a (for me) completely new field 3 years ago, the meetings with the MetaFluidics partners have been a welcome opportunity for me to develop a deeper scientific understanding of the microbial world that I work with now.
- A more personal question now… What is your favorite book (or author)?
Currently, I think my favorite author is Bernard Cornwell since I am a big fan of historical fiction and he has written a very good series called Saxon Stories/The Last Kingdom about the Viking invasions of England and the birth of England as one country. I also enjoy very much reading books by Ken Follett, George R.R. Martin and Philip Pullman among others.
For more information about Partner QIAGEN Bioinformatics, visit their webpage: https://www.qiagenbioinformatics.com/
