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What do you do at SPT Labtech?

Dong Luo-Danneker is a Field Application Scientist based in France, supporting customers across the country and throughout Europe. She delivers instrument training, provides scientific guidance during pre-sales discussions, and helps customers integrate automation into their genomics workflows. 

Dong also collaborates closely with colleagues across the European FAS team, travelling to support projects in multiple territories and ensuring researchers receive expert, hands-on assistance at every stage.

How did your path lead you here?

Born in China and now proudly feeling more French than anything after 30 years in France, Dong has a deep-rooted background in genomics. She completed her PhD in genetics in Paris, working in a historic institute near the Curie Institute under a remarkable female scientist, a former collaborator of a Nobel Prize winner.

After a postdoc, Dong realized her passion wasn’t in academic research but in supporting scientists. She began her career in technical support at a leading French distributor, eventually expanding into marketing and product management. She later became a Field Application Scientist in the sequencing industry, working extensively on NGS workflows and automation, including large, automated platforms for library preparation. Her expertise in genomics and hands-on experience with automation made her a perfect fit for SPT Labtech.

What drew her most? The technology, the smart product positioning, the compact design of firefly^®, and the flexibility and innovation she saw within the company. Her first visit to our Melbourn headquarters confirmed it: she immediately felt at home with a team that was kind, motivated, and passionate.

What’s a typical day like?

Dong’s days vary depending on whether she’s travelling or working locally. Training weeks can include multi-day customer visits, preparation, and travel across Europe, something she genuinely enjoys. 

When not on the road, she works closely with TMs to meet customers, understand their workflows, gather scientific details, and support ongoing projects. She values open communication, particularly between TM and FAS roles, to ensure customer needs are fully understood from both technical and commercial perspectives.

Her day-to-day already includes customer meetings, workflow discussions, protocol planning and delivering on-site instrument training.

What’s the best part of your job?

For Dong, the most rewarding part is helping scientists reach their goals. She loves understanding diverse research projects, asking thoughtful questions, anticipating needs and opportunities, and supporting customers all the way to successful results.

She thrives on communication, scientific problem-solving, and connecting with people, and yes, she’s also delighted that the role includes plenty of travel!

Making a difference at SPT Labtech

Dong is passionate about improving scientists’ lives by simplifying workflows and reducing repetitive manual tasks. She strongly believes automation is the future, helping researchers focus on their science while improving consistency, accuracy, and well-being.

With firefly’s intuitive design and SPT Labtech’s flexible, compact instruments, she sees tremendous potential to meet the growing needs of genomics labs. She is also excited about the power of miniaturization, particularly with mosquito^®, and how these innovations can transform NGS workflows across Europe.

For her, making a difference means listening deeply, understanding scientific challenges, and offering tailored automation solutions that truly elevate a lab’s capabilities.

What do you get up to outside of work?

Dong loves travelling, not just to see new places, but to learn how people live, eat, and connect. Thailand is one of her favorite destinations, where the kindness, calmness and philosophy of daily life left a lasting impression.

She also dedicates much of her personal time to yoga and meditation. Dong has spent several years studying at a yoga school in Paris, deepening her understanding of yoga philosophy, mindfulness, and personal balance. These practices help her feel centered, confident, and deeply attentive when communicating with others, in both life and work.