March 5, 2025

Daniel Chen: From Seattle to Cambridge

Daniel Chen, an UW Honors alumni who graduated in 2022 with a B.S. in Microbiology and Informatics, has brought his passion from the rainy area of Seattle to the Wellcome Sanger Institute and Cambridge Stem Cell Institute in England. After earning a Marshall Scholarship in 2023, Daniel is now at the University of Cambridge obtaining a Master of Philosophy in Computational Biology. From publishing papers on generative AI that predicts genetic perturbation changes in human tissues to winning an owl award (pictured to the right) for experiments, Daniel Chen has been making the most of his time abroad. He shared what he has taken away from his experience with us:

What is your favorite part about your experience?

“One of my favorite parts has been the community of students. I’ve been very fortunate to be with so many amazing people, in the Marshall cohort, doing vastly different things than me from clinical machine learning to quantum and law and even sending satellites into space. Their expertise and passion for their work and helping the greater humankind is very inspiring and also challenges me to break out of the rigid thinking that sometimes comes with working in one field for too long.”

What is something you are looking forward to?

“I’m really excited for my time in LA, I’ve recently learned that one of the key protocols we utilize at Cambridge for creating artificial thymuses’, the organ responsible for one arm of the immune system, was developed by Prof. Gay Crooks at UCLA so that was a very lovely connection and I’m excited to find and engage with more.”