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Maria

Chatzou Dunford

Born in Greece I am originally from Greece, but I have spent two-thirds of my life
abroad. Every scientist has a similar trajectory – you move for your
work.

2008 I have had incredible people helping me throughout my
BSc in entrepreneurial journey. I am not from a privileged family, my mum is
Computer Science
and Biomedical not Marie Curie, and my dad is not Steve Jobs or someone equivalent.
Informatics
University of
Thessaly (Volos)
2010 So what is my secret? I choose to focus on
MSc in opportunities. I would encourage everyone to
Bioinformatics become part of an organisation, such as ELIXIR
(University of
Athens/University or the Innovation Forum, as a hobby to give you a
of Stockholm) sandbox, where you can get training in business,
communication, networking, etc.
2010-2011
Bioinformatics
Engineer
2014
Founding member
of the grass-
roots network
Innovation Forum
2016
PhD in
Bioinformatics
co-developed
Nextflow
(University
Pompeu Fabra,
Barcelona)

2016-2017
Postdoctoral
researcher at CRG

2017 I did move to Cambridge when I founded Lifebit. When you are trying
Founder of Lifebit to build a deep-tech company, then you need to be very close to the
(Cambridge)
pharmaceutical clients, hospitals, biotech companies because they’re
our predominant clients. Then, you need to be close to a cluster of
big research institutions – take the Golden Triangle between London,
Cambridge and Oxford.