Sabbatical - Exploration & Skill Development

Independent Work | August 2025 - April 2026

Overview

Following the completion of my Master’s degree in Bioinformatics, I dedicated several months to reflect on my academic and professional direction, particularly regarding a potential orientation toward medicine.

Medical Studies Project & Academic Preparation

During this sabbatical, I actively began studying core subjects of the medical curriculum (including anatomy, physiology, and embryology) and undertook clinical immersions to prepare my entry into medical school. For more details on my academic preparation and clinical observations, visit the dedicated Medical Studies Project page.

During this period, I independently explored a wide range of technical tools and personal projects through self-learning and experimentation. This time allowed me to deeply cultivate my culture in tech and artificial intelligence, building exploratory projects on various topics—some completed, others in progress. This significantly strengthened my skills in programming, data science, bioinformatics, and automation.

A major part of my workflow involved AI-assisted coding using tools like Claude Code, which supported learning, rapid prototyping, and the adoption of modern software development practices.

Technical Exploration & Projects

Machine Learning, Computer Vision & Artificial Intelligence

Followed the Introduction to Machine Learning Specialization on Coursera.
Computer Vision (Petri Dish Project): Applied computer vision techniques for the image analysis of fungal cultures using OpenCV and YOLO.
Learned to use and integrate the Model Context Protocol (MCP) to extend LLM capabilities with tools.
Cultivated a strong tech culture by exploring the current AI landscape and generative AI trends.
Experimented with local LLMs using Ollama and Hugging Face for model exploration and datasets.

Web Scraping & Data Pipelines

Extracted fitness data using Playwright, successfully navigating bot-detection mechanisms.
Scraped medical course content using Beautiful Soup.
Parsed PDF documents with MinerU.
Structured extracted data into a graph-based knowledge base using Neo4j and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG).

Software & System Development

iOS App: Explored iOS development by creating a Swift application for gym session tracking, integrated with a SQL backend on Supabase (exploratory project, currently unfinished).
Systems & Languages: Explored Rust and C programming to study memory management, type safety, and low-level system design.
Bot Development: Created a Discord bot.
API Integration: Synchronized calendar data using the Strava API and performed custom API calls for data retrieval.

Infrastructure, DevOps & Scientific Publishing

Configured workflows using Docker and dev containers (Rocker for R and Python).
Deployed applications on a VPS, secured and managed via Cloudflare.
Automated pipelines using n8n and GitHub Actions with cron scheduling.
Leveraged Quarto, Typst (modern markup layout engine), and Marimo (reactive Python notebooks) to generate dynamic documents, my personal website, book templates, and professional CV.

Reflections & Impact

This sabbatical period allowed me to take a step back and diversify my technical skill set far beyond the scope of traditional academic training. The ability to autonomously learn, conceptualize, and deploy projects from end to end has deeply enriched my engineering approach. It reinforced my adaptability—a critical asset whether tackling complex biological data systems or bridging technology with medical practice.