The graduates of this school talk enough about it and seem so tightly-linked with it, that I have finally become curious-enough to learn more about it. I figured I would share the information with all of you, at the same time. To learn more about the school, I spoke with Patrick Girard, who has been the school’s Director for ten years, and Claude Goldszmidt, GPHY Professor and Senior Consultant at Capgemini.

The GPHY School was founded in 1971. Although it was initially more geared toward engineering, it was always intended to provide a multidisciplinary curriculum, combining courses such as biology and computer science. The graduates are formed more as computer scientists, but with a strong scientific background so that they will specifically understand the issues of scientific software. The school was initially focused mainly on pharmaceuticals, biotechs and biopharms, but in 2000, it diversified to service an increased variety of other industries that are biology and health related.

90% of the students that come to GPHY have a background in Biology. The school’s success in placing their graduates comes partly from their hands-on approach to learning the discipline. Students are trained in real-life systems using professional methods, and are required to mix internships with companies along with their coursework. The students are required to spend three months of each year of study in internships for their first two years, and six months of internships for their third year of study.

Additionally, the school maintains a strong relationship both with the end-user companies, as well as the scientific software companies. In fact, many instructors are experts from the industry, who share their knowledge and first-hand expertise with these students. The school maintains links with over 500 French companies, and links with companies from other countries, as well.

Students are increasingly hired by both these categories of companies, as the school maintains ongoing relationships with these companies in order to understand what job skills are needed. Thus, the school maintains that their students, upon graduation, will have a shorter ramp-up time than students who did not receive this type of multi-disciplinary and work-study-type of training. It is the school’s goal to provide as much real-world experience and knowledge as possible to prepare their students to excel in their real-world positions.

Thank you to both Patrick and Claude for the time they gave to me to help me put this information together to share with all of you who read TheIntegratedLab.com.

* GPHY means: Genie Physiologics Informatics.

1. Easy access from any computer with a web browser
2. Ability to securely edit the pages, and keep an edit history
3. Commenting from other people
4. Backup
5. Search

Simple requirments; simple solution.

But on a different note, the University of Cambridge has taken a commercial route.  I can’t help thinking that one approach, from the complex area of bioinformatics, has adopted a very simple solution, whereas the other, from a more structured chemistry-based process, has chosen a sophisticated commercial solution.  It does draw attention to the difference in requirements between biology and chemistry when choosing an ELN, and the difference in the possible solutions.