Laboratory Automation Engineer / Applications Specialist

[Xavier Perrodon]

Xavier PERRODON
Email: [email protected]
French, willing to relocate to Europe

Summary
With a strong scientific background and more than 9 years of experience in laboratory hardware and software automation (academic and industrial environments), I would like to contribute to the design and development of original and innovative automated solutions for R&D laboratories.

Skills

• Hands on expertise with the operation of scheduling software, articulating arms, stacker-based devices, liquid handlers, plate readers, barcode printers, incubators, I/O boards, ...
• Certifications: Evotec, Tecan, Perkin-Elmer. Good Knowledge of Beckman and Velocity11 software and liquid/plate handlers.
• Sample management
• Computers: hardware, software, systems, network administration, database management, programming, web administration
• Project management
• Good oral and written communication. Very creative and high sense of detail
• Languages (all quickly improvable): French (native), English (fluent), German (good academic), Korean (good bases), Spanish (basic), Japanese (JLPT4 in 2009).

Professional experience

Jun. 2007 ?to date: Eli Lilly Singapore - Laboratory Automation Engineer
Operations department, support of approx. 50 R&D scientists (www.lscdd.lilly.com.sg).

• Choice of the configuration of robotic platforms based on the researchers?needs, calibration, QA, validation, customer support and training, programming (transfer of biological assays to automation), troubleshooting, preventive maintenance, customization of pre-existing solutions (hardware and software).
• In charge of plate dispensers (PlateMate, Multidrops), plate readers (MD Spectramax M2 and Tecan Safire), three PerkinElmer Janus (PerkinElmer certified), three Tecan Freedom Evo/Genesis (Tecan certified), one integrated Remp SSS, one Qiagen Biorobot and one Velocity11 BenchCel + VCode.
• Project leader and automation consultant for the design and setup of a regional corporate automated compound management centre (room layout, choice and purchase of instruments, workflows, customization, fine-tuning and validation) in close relationship with our IT department, colleagues and manufacturers from the US and Europe, and local distributors.
  Duration: 2 years. Budget: approx. 1 million US$.
• Application of Good Research Practice (GRP) and Business Continuity Plan (BCP) principles to the site automated instruments.

Sept. 2004 ?Jun. 2007: Institut Pasteur Korea (Seoul) - Laboratory Automation Engineer
Screening Technologies and Pharmacology Group, support of 8 biologists (www.ip-korea.org).

• Setup of the laboratory (choice and purchase of equipment, benches layout, installation of robots and devices, recruitment interviews).
• Compound management (reception, inventory and update, storage, tracking, reformatting, hit-picking and dose-response programming for more than 250,000 chemical compounds).
• Liquid handling robots/workstations and assay robotic platforms: programming, optimization, validation, maintenance and technical support.
  In charge of one Evotec EVOscreen (uHTS platform: Scarina, EVObird, SynQuad (non-contact nano-dispenser), Liconic plate incubators, Opera (confocal fluorescence microscope), one Velocity11 platform (6-stacker Benchcel, Plateloc, Vcode), one Beckman Biomek NX Span8, plate readers (MD SpectraMax M5, Perkin-Elmer Victor3) and one Flexdrop (non-contact plate liquid dispenser).
• Automation of cell-based assays in a BSL-3 laboratory for infectious diseases (HIV, TB).
• Establishment of Standard Operation Procedures for robotic use and compound management, training of my coworkers on the use of robotic platforms.
• Management of 1 or 2 technicians according to projects.
• Software used: Evotec Acapella (HCS image analysis), ActivityBase, XLfit, Spotfire.

Sept. 2001 ?Jul. 2003: Cabinet Simon, Tanay, de Kaenel (Paris, France) - IT Manager
Support of 50 internal customers in a real estate company.

• Computer maintenance, technical support, network administration
• Database management, design and development of the company's intranet website.
• Design and programming of business-oriented applications (VB).

Feb. 2001 ?Sept. 2002: Conservatoire National des Arts et M彋iers (Paris, France) - Laboratory Automation Research Assistant (www.cnam.eu).

• Conception and set up of an HPLC online analysis system on a Zymark robotic site dedicated to automated organic synthesis. Development and optimization of chemical analytical methods.
• Development in Visual Basic of a Man-Machine Interface for the integration of laboratory devices using the RS-232 protocol.
• Supervising of robotics practical works for CNAM students.

Education

• 2001 ?2002: Dipl獽e d'尒udes Approfondies (eq. M.Res.) in Industrial Chemical Engineering.
  With high honours from the Universit?Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris, France, http://english.upmc.fr).
• 1994 ?2001: Dipl獽e dng幯ieur (eq. M.Eng.) in Chemical Engineering (www.escom.fr).
  With high honours from the 丱ole Sup廨ieure de Chimie Organique et Min廨ale (Compi銶ne, France)

Publication
O.K. Song, T.H. Kim, X. Perrodon, C.B. Lee, H.K.Jeon, Z. Seghiri, H.J. Kwon, J. Cechetto and T. Christophe, Confocal-Based Method for Quantification of Diffusion Kinetics in Microwell Plates and Its Application for Identifying a Rapid Mixing Method for High-Content/Throughput Screening, Journal of Biomolecular Screening 15(2); 2010.

Others

• Taekwondo black belt, panoramic photography, music composition, foreign languages.
• Member of the Laboratory Robotics Interest Group (LRIG) and the Association for Laboratory Automation (ALA).
• Occupational First Aid Degree from the Singapore Red Cross; former active member of the French Red Cross.