Scientific MOOCs follower. Author of Airpocalypse, a techno-medical thriller (Out Summer 2017)


Welcome to the digital era of biology (and to this modest blog I started in early 2005).

To cure many diseases, like cancer or cystic fibrosis, we will need to target genes (mutations, for ex.), not organs! I am convinced that the future of replacement medicine (organ transplant) is genomics (the science of the human genome). In 10 years we will be replacing (modifying) genes; not organs!


Anticipating the $100 genome era and the P4™ medicine revolution. P4 Medicine (Predictive, Personalized, Preventive, & Participatory): Catalyzing a Revolution from Reactive to Proactive Medicine.


I am an early adopter of scientific MOOCs. I've earned myself four MIT digital diplomas: 7.00x, 7.28x1, 7.28.x2 and 7QBWx. Instructor of 7.00x: Eric Lander PhD.

Upcoming books: Airpocalypse, a medical thriller (action taking place in Beijing) 2017; Jesus CRISPR Superstar, a sci-fi -- French title: La Passion du CRISPR (2018).

I love Genomics. Would you rather donate your data, or... your vital organs? Imagine all the people sharing their data...

Audio files on this blog are Windows files ; if you have a Mac, you might want to use VLC (http://www.videolan.org) to read them.

Concernant les fichiers son ou audio (audio files) sur ce blog : ce sont des fichiers Windows ; pour les lire sur Mac, il faut les ouvrir avec VLC (http://www.videolan.org).


My 8 followers on Weibo (Chinese equivalent of Twitter)

Really love this one!
Have signed with an Oxford UK publishing house a contract for 3 fictions, which should all be out before April 2017.

Doomsdare, a medical thriller (action taking place in Beijing)
Jesus CRISPR Superstar, a sci-fi, written with Isabelle Provost
French version of the sci-fi: La Passion Du CRISPR.

Then, from April 2017 on, will spend one year in Asia, emphasis on China. My very recent stays in Beijing? A shock, an ongoing one, one foot in fairy tale (thank you Cixin Liu) one foot in abyss (hashtag airpocalypse). Have seen a few things about the development of mHealth in China and want to explore... Thank you Jean-Michel Billaut (French blogger) for the tutorial sessions that should help me find ways to monetize those stays in Asia...

My (modest) mHealth Silk Road (LOL) project: Will explore startup incubators in Malaysia (Cyberjaya), North of Thailand and various parts of China from April to (at least) December 2017...

Have a passion for Chinese language and civilization anyway...

Of course, will attend mHealth congresses in China wearing Regina Holliday's jacket -- the one she painted for me... Chinese people usually love this jacket (from what I saw on a couple of opportunities in Beijing and Shanghai)...

8 followers on Weibo already, including Veritas Genetics (Shanghai), hopefully soon 12...

ICP Géopolitique Chine Contemporaine

Another MOOC I've just completed. Great one... (in French). Thank you so much Professeur Emmanuel Lincot, Institut Catholique de Paris.

https://www.fun-mooc.fr/courses/ICP/84001/session01/about

https://www.fun-mooc.fr/courses/ICP/84001/session01/about

You, Your Data, Your Genome

Portable Genomics is a startup in San Diego, California.

Want to know what is at the forefront of digital medicine? Your genome on your mobile, since biology is going digital, is something that is bound to happen...

Read Portable Genomics' Press Release (hot off the press)!

Courtesy of Patrick Merel, Founder of Portable Genomics:

Download PDF here: link.

http://www.thejournalofprecisionmedicine.com/genomics-data-at-your-fingertips-portable-genomics-patent-approved


Heart Haiku

What could a Doctor from the future say about (for ex.) heart transplants? Have a Bone(s) to pick with organ transplants?... This is all fiction, of course... I guess a doctor from the future would find this obsession with vital organs (conventional medicine is an organ-based science; not a science based on the cell(s), the molecules and even individual atoms) weird and scientifically inaccurate.

Don't replace my heart
With a stethoscope.

I carry your heart
With me
A two-faced story.

Predation
Carved in the story
Of organ transplant.

I carry your heart...
Agape / Eros
Beat in unison
Fight in unison

Life and death story
Yes. Tim Burton style.

Don't replace my heart
With a stethoscope.

http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/star-trek-original-series/images/19173996/title/bones-wallpaper



Reading, Writing and Mangas



Reading (if you don't read, you don't write, right?)

Awesome book, discussing it with engineers in my network /guanxi
Also, see:
https://www.edge.org/conversation/george_church-the-augmented-human-being
https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/4fbcyv/science_ama_series_im_george_church_professor_at/



And I've just received this one:

Also, found this old book I've been reading and studying a loooong time ago at La Sorbonne (Germanistik)


... and watching a lot of Mangas... a bit of everything, actually... Is my brain storing every fact, info or piece of narrative I chance upon in manga-style and format? I'm afraid it might.

https://fr.pinterest.com/dalyapallot/beautiful-wonderlands


Mapping The Immune System To Prepare For Next-Gen Transplant & Cancer Therapies

Meeting With My Mentor (UK Publishing House)

I've decided to write sci-fi. 3 projects under development, but I'm not a native English speaker (French and German native speaker). So this idea to publish English books (3 fictions) was kind of making me totally stressed.

Had lunch (Publishing houses love throwing lunch and dinner parties with their authors, don't they?) with my "mentor", Jon. He is British, has a university background in life science and 3 MBAs -- one in Finance, one in Project Management and the other one, I don't remember the specialization, but he also mentioned PRINCE II in the process. He is an expert in sci-fi, and seems to be quite strict. I was rather impressed by his culture and nervous (my sci-fi culture is obviously deficient), but we ended up getting along quite well. I'm very grateful for the mentoring in sci-fi (clearly lacking expertise here), and for the guidance in the proofreading process and all...

Already working with a professional book cover designer, so... yes, the whole thing is more or less getting real I guess...

Still have a lot to learn, and this is only the beginning of the adventure... Will be meeting with my mentor in France (Chatou, Paris area) and in Oxford UK. BTW, I just love that Blackwell's bookstore in Oxford...

https://fr.pinterest.com/dalyapallot/beautiful-wonderlands



Front Line Genomics in Breast Cancer


http://www.prevention.com/health/this-will-reduce-your-risk-of-dying-from-breast-cancer

Doomsdare

This is the title of my new book, sci-fi roman. Action taking place in Beijing, Paris France and NY. This was initially a short novel, ended up writing a whole story.
Lunch Meeting with my publisher, restaurant name: Au Bonheur de Chine (LOL). Well this restaurant is something special for me, so I wanted us to meet there.
Expecting all manner of criticism...
Him : "About the ending..."
Me: "Yeah, know what you mean. This is kind of a stupid idea, gonna cut that part out..."
Him: "Not what I meant. Because of the end, people might want to read the sequel to this story ..."
Me: "What????? No!!!!!"
Totally NOT prepared to this...

Anyway, next meeting on Friday next week, will get the book cover :-)

Sequel???!!! I hope this was meant to be a joke.
Well, at least, I like my pen name :-)

http://www.bonheurdechine.com

Porcelain Sculptures by Kate MacDowell
Porcelain Sculptures by Kate MacDowell

Porcelain Sculptures by Kate MacDowell
About the sequel to Doomsdare... Yup. Been thinking about it. Should be able to do something :-)

http://www.strangeling.com/shop/fine-art-prints/dragon-hearts

Genomics over iTunes concept to browse genome information on mobile devices



Sci-fi? No. Reality.


http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/portable-genomics-combines-genomic-data-with-electronic-digital-media-to-revolutionize-personalized-medicine-300249835.html
Live in the know...

http://www.grainededen.com/essential_grid/nicoletta-ceccoli-tarot-6

Géopolitique de la Chine

J'aime beaucoup ce MOOC fait par le Professeur Emmanuel Lincot, de l'Institut Catholique de Paris. Vidéos courtes et synthétiques, grand sens de l'image ... Du beau travail, un régal de suivre ce cours !

https://www.fun-mooc.fr/courses/ICP/84001/session01/about
Pr. Emmanuel Lincot, 

2e visioconférence du MOOC Géopolitique de la Chine contemporaine


If Mister Spock Could See Me

http://quotesgram.com/mr-spock-quotes-illogical/#2e2ZSO8DRT

Star Trek Haiku

If Mister Spock
Could see me

As I have
No God no Religion
He would say
I am not a good companion.

As people
I admire most
Are dancers
Choreographers, writers;
Not scientists,
He would say
I am an escape artist.

My faulty logic,
My love for Edgar
Allan Poe,
My woe...

All
A minor
Mishap.

A grave
Misunderstanding,
When it comes to my
C Sharp
Or Python coding.

If Mister Spock
Could see me

His diagnosis
And Freudian logic
Writing an algorithm,
A sci-fi beam,
A beating-heart
Force bypass.

If Mister Spock
Could see me

May the Force
Be with my coronary artery.

Three Body Trilogy

This sci-fi somehow got the key to my heart. I'm just in love with the whole saga.



A Synbio saga, with a Mister Spock, an IBM Watson and a new planet?... Hehehe...


Jesus-CRISPR Superstar


"Shattered"

Shattered?!
Errr... Let's see...
Shattered I
Used to be...

Working with transplant surgeons
Was not always easy,

As

Politic
Does not rhyme with
Scientific.

So Regina painted this cool jacket for me.

Painted by Regina Holliday, The Walking Gallery of Health Care.
That was one year ago.
Now that I've earned myself 4 MITx MOOCs in Genomics, I don't feel like I'm shattered anymore. Having started my own science-fiction writing projects, that BTW have just been greenlit by my publisher, and an exciting "gamification" project (working with great web designers)... Shattered? Not really.

It feels more like this...

Just back from a 1-hour run, late for a Skype session with my family in Malaysia, and they were all laughing when they saw my face.  Running everywhere and too much multi-tasking, maybe. But shattered? Nah, I don't think so...
Now MOOCs are no PhDs, so I'm not expecting I'll be working in Big Pharma or funding my own startup, but MOOCs are great for a fiction writer like me. Knitting together science and fiction. Sounds like fun. I've always wanted to be able to do that. So yeah, I'm grateful for the MOOCs.

For Regina Holliday.
BTW Regina means "queen" in Latin.

New Icon For Medicine?

My new account on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter: DNA cowgirl -- DNA 女牛仔.

Doomsdare, Book Cover (The Making)

Working with book cover designer Dalya Pallot. For my upcoming medical thriller, "Doomsdare" (a novel), I have in mind something special, quite specific. Dalya: "I could draw it. I mean, on paper. Not digital."



To be continued... DIY book cover, I like the concept, see where it goes.

Meeting With My Publisher (cont'd)


Homo Possessus, FB
Another meeting with my publisher, another Chinese restaurant -- see first meeting here.
Boy, two books greenlit within just one week (a Chinese medical thriller and a sci-fi), I've been busy.

First project is a medical thriller, second one is a sci-fi.

Of course, second restaurant is about second project:

This time we were having a late lunch in Paris Chinatown (13th district of Paris), full-to-the-brim restaurant, where menus are not even in a language I can read. Happens a lot to me (living part of the year in Asia, eating in stalls where they use Cantonese language). Anyway, everything you order, you share, and vice-versa, so we pretty much ended up eating each other's food. I'm used to Chinese lessons in noisy surroundings (one of my teachers gave her lessons in a Chinese stall, at lunch time, once there were even a few monkeys around). One of my friends is an authentic Japanese geisha, I think she would have just run away: everything has to be perfect and calm 100% of the time, having a monkey right next to her would make her hysterical, but she doesn't mind having Japanese politicians around; I feel the other way around.
So in a high-volume background, we had a nice exchange, mad-tea-party style, about that sci-fi project that kept me so busy last summer...
Publisher (P): "Chapter 5 is stunning. I love it."
Me: "Yup. That one pretty much hit me like a train. I knew I had to write about the whole thing."
P: "You've got to finish this as soon as possible. I mean, take your time, but... Make it your priority."
Me: "My priority, you mean, after that Chinese thriller I'm just finishing, right?"
(both laughing)
Me: "It might end up being a trilogy... I was kind of thinking..."
P: "Chinese thriller might be good stuff for a trilogy. That one... concentrate on a one-book-effort. And that Zhuang is important, you should invest more time and effort here."
Me: "I can't imagine that thriller becoming a trilogy. There will never be enough material..."
P: "There already is. Plus, this is not for you to decide. The readers..."
(too much noise)
Me: "But I've got too much material for that sci-fi. Will never fit in one book..."
P: "For the kind of story you are telling, you will need an incredible amount of material. Much more than you think will fit in..." (noise)
Me, totally at a loss: "Ah, OK lah."
... Well, maybe.
Would love to be able to write short stories, novellas. But for some reason, characters end up asking for more interactions, more material, more everything... They have a reality of their own, and I try to keep up with their demand. So my short stories project (already have written plenty of those) will have to wait...

Then I tell him about my dream: for the last few nights, I kept having nightmares involving this movie, "Farewell my Concubine." No reason, really, as I saw this film ages ago and forgot about it.
P, laughing: "See? I was right."
Me: "Sorry, errrr... Right about what?..."
P: "You want that Chinese thriller to become a trilogy."
"??????" (noise noise noise)
P: (noise) "... can't let go of... character."
Me: "Which character?"
silence.
Me: "Oh, that dissident Chinese writer"
P (at the same time): "The writer."
Both laughing.
Me: "But I do prefer the characters in my sci-fi project."
P: (noise) "Your unconscious self is telling another story."
Me: "My unconscious. Boy..."

The rest was pretty much around Scrivener blah blah and Safe Creative blah blah and VPN blah blah

Anyway, the food was great. I love popular restaurants/stalls, even if this time there were no monkeys.

Welcome