About Me — Alessandro Crimi. Researcher, Lecturer, Interested in…
By: Dr. Alessandro Crimi
Tags: About Me, Biography, Biotech, Academic, Medicine

I have been doing many things, and I would say lived a couple of lives. I will skip some stuff I am not ready to talk about in public and focus on the current and important ones. One of my weakness is that I tried to do too many things, but the constants were always science, co-operation in Subsaharan Africa and art. I have been living in quite few countries. I need this summary also for myself.

I was born in Italy. Initially started studying engineer, then moved more and more into medicine (here and there in Italy and Germany). Between 2007 and 2011. I did a PhD at the University of Copenhagen (Denmark). I doubt my work there left a dent in the universe, and I remember it was also a very emotional period which I survived thanks to my mentors (people I met later in science were not so nice). Anyway, it forged my critical thinking which I am using every day. Thank you Prof. Mads Nielsen and Dr. Martin Lillholm.

The Mermaid of Copenhagen. Credits: Alessandro Crimi

At the end of 2011, after my PhD, I won a scholarship from the European Union to do a period of post-doctoral research in a place of my choice. I chose INRIA SophiaAntipolis in souther France, no idea what happened, I ended up in Bretagne (which is not the same, but I didn’t know :-) ) in a shared position between INRIA and the neurology ward at the University Hospital of Rennes (at least still France). My boss was Prof.Christian Barillot. A friendly, funny man which unfortunately passed away in 2020 (not for COVID but cancer). I learned a lot there, and finally I think I did my first useful thing. Quantification/prediction of multiple sclerosis outcome from images. Thank you Christian, you have no idea how much we miss you. Now deep learning and images is the new electricity (everybody uses them) but at that time was something really revolutionary. Also, I learned to master my preferred toy: Brain tractography.

Introduction to brain Tractography. Academic year 2019–2020

At the same time, a Swedish professor- Magdalena Ericsson-invited me to teach in Ghana within the Next Einstein Initiative (a program where lectures and professor across the globe are invited to teach and find the next Einstein in Africa, I think we found a couple), and since 2012 I am indeed a visiting lecture. I come to teach, exams and then I leave. Above, you can see a video of my teaching, as due to COVID in 2020 lectures were via Zoom. It is already 8 years I do this, and I love it. The students in Ghana have always shown interest, passion and they become a family. Also, I fell in love with Ghana. It is bursting, active, and music/art/food loving country. Maybe I have been too many years far from my own country and Ghana kind of reminds it to me. A woman once told me

“Sicily is Italy on steroids, Ghana is Sicily on steroids”.

It is the perfect solution if you don’t want to stay in boring places.

Academic year 2012–2013 Credits: Alessandro Crimi

Despite Christian tried to keep me into neurology in Rennes, in 2013 I moved to Zurich (Switzerland) for the first time, to work at ETH (The Technical School of Switzerland). I skip about my official research there (boring), but I have to mention that a special office of ETH (ETH-Global) gave me funding to do a project shared between Switzerland and Ghana. I could not do something with magnetic resonance imaging (my beloved machine is too heavy), so I ended up devising a project with ultrasound devices (more practical to carry). For personal reasons at that time I was very interested in prenatal care, so the project ended up devising was “promoting prenatal care in Ghana with portable ultrasound”. It was amazing. Not because we felt like “heroes changing the world”, but because we had a lot of interactions with people of the villages. People were thrilled that we wanted to do something helpful for them, and it didn’t feel as science stuck in a lab, more like an adventure. We were really doing something with patients. I still remember a lot of funny situations like with the chiefs of the villages when we had to explain how an ultrasound work at the middle of the beach, and so on.

Meeting with the Chiefs at the beach of Afumasa (Ghana). Credits Alessandro Crimi

I had so much fun, that coming back to Europe I took another degree (MBA in international health management) to do similar projects and works for NGO and governments. It was a very expensive and instructive idea. I met many relevant people during the courses, some of them are still collaborators. Unfortunately, you just add letters to your name Dr. Crimi PHD MBA, but life doesn’t change that much. You don’t find a job more easily, and you might even scare people with your CV. I advise to be humbler and find your place in society in a more straightforward way (I have seen people with a highschool degree overtaking me).

Moreover, international development is a highly political context, with many valuable people doing low-wage jobs for many years. Indeed, after that I have been involved in other projects across Africa (Zimbabwe, New Guinea…) which did not go that well (I prefer not to mention the organizations and projects). Yes, changing the world is harder than you think, you might just waste time and resources. I even started doubting about this lifestyle of hero-wanna-be. Indeed, I even lost relationships because of my engagements of poor’s man Superman (egoistic lifestyle, PTSD…). I gave a speech about it. Inspired by a talk with a friend which discussed with me about the fact “we do not have GOATS and CHICKENS roaming the streets in Switzerland” (the chicken theme will come back later in my life :-) ).

I moved back to Italy, it was the beginning of 2015. I thought it was time to go back to my own country. I moved to Genova and started working at the Italian Institute of Technology. Diego and Vittorio (Dr. Sona and Prof. Murino) were working on some very interesting projects about brain connectivity for Alzheimer, Schizophrenia, Autism and so on. Some of the works we did, I presented in a provocative TEDx talk in Germany:

To complicate even more my life. One of my former students from Ghana (she was originally from Sudan) managed to have a grant to carry out her PhD with me, but due to fact I was not in Zurich anymore ,and other constraints she (Samar Elsheik) ended up in SouthAfrica (a total mess up we worked out). Yes, we were ahead our time doing home-office and remote-working since 2016 :-) Despite this crazy situation; she published articles and also got her PHD:

Samar at the virtual graduation in CapeTown (with no people due to COVID19). Credits University of CapeTown https://www.news.uct.ac.za/news/graduation/2020/december/-article/2020-12-17-uct-honours-graduates-on-virtual-stage?fbclid=IwAR1k7-7At1Qwa7tvtXTXXLcpHPiXIsF6nmB_Lw-WTqYtBiM5iJ2GoKgxh6I

But Italy was not my country anymore, I was already away since more than 7 years before coming back. Unfortunately, when you are away for so long, you start being a foreigner in your own country. I could not fit in anymore. So, again at the end of 2016 I left the institute, and ended up AGAIN in beautiful Zurich (Switzerland) for science. This time it was the University and University Hospital of Zurich. I have been surrounded by very eclectic biologists and medical doctors which taught me a lot. Putting together all those experiences at the beginning of 2020, I had the crazy idea to finally leave academia, and create a company for diagnostics for Subsaharan countries. Welcome to a lot of new headaches: patents, production, research and develop on your own… and as we never expected … COVID19.

We just launched, I have no idea how it will go. In parallel of raising money with grants and prizes, we just launched a crowdfunding campaign with chickens :-) .

Writing this has been like a therapy for me. By iterating on this, made me realize that of all those things, the only useful things I did so far feel the prenatal care project in Ghana, and the fact I contributed to the PhD of Samar (and maybe my work on multiple sclerosis).

So, the main lessons learned are

Focus on the purpose, not on your title or fame. Take care of yourself both financially and mentally.

If you cannot sustain yourself financially, you will not be able to help others. This is more than ever important with all the stressful period we are living due to COVID19. And yes, more than ever right now money is an issue for many people. Use your survival skills. If you have some kind of depression, trauma, PTSD… better address it immediately. You cannot drive an airplane if you are drunk.