I’m Simon, a bioinformatician data scientist working as a postdoc in the laboratory of Prof Sir Steve Jackson at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute in the University of Cambridge. Currently based in Oxfordshire, I obtained degrees at the University of Cambridge and King’s College London. My research aims to extract the maximum possible information from data and bringing it to non-technical people for exploration and hypothesis generation. Aside from science, I also served a short stint as an English teacher in Wuhan.
Background
I was brought up in the 90s near Birmingham, United Kingdom to first-generation migrants from southeast China. Fascinated by my dad’s technology and the numbers in games I played as a child, I took an affinity to data and graphs quite early on. I excelled at my local state school, choosing biology as the subject I would take to university despite this subject being the only one I didn’t get an A* in.
Education
In 2013, I matriculated at Gonville and Caius College at the University of Cambridge to study the Natural Sciences tripos. Throughout my undergrad, I noticed the relative absence of coding and bioinformatics in my studies. I was left to relieve this itch myself, by first undertaking consecutive summer projects at the structural and synthetic biology lab of Dr Peter Winn at the University of Birmingham, and then by selecting a molecular phylogeny Part II project with Dr Ross Waller and an executable biology Part III project with Dr Jasmin Fisher and Prof Gerard Evan. These projects formed my first formal introduction to independent coding for bioinformatics.
In 2019, I joined Prof Adil Mardinoglu’s lab at King’s College London to pursue a PhD in systems biology. Here, I directed my focus on genomics and mathematical modelling of metabolic networks in neurological diseases. My work proposed a potential role for retinoids in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. It was also at King’s that my perception of visual data was greatly broadened. From designing my own figures for inclusion on posters and in my thesis to being inspired by the COVID-19 dashboards at the time, I realised that there is a real need for visual data communication for people who don’t necessary have programming skills.
Research
In 2022, I returned to Cambridge to begin a postdoctoral position as a bioinformatician data scientist at Prof Sir Steve Jackson’s lab. Here, I develop visual data tools for exploration by non-bioinformatician lab members and for the research community. Aside from providing bioinformatic, data scientific, biostatistical, and omics analytical assistance to experimental lab members, my other research interests include development of value-added bioinformatic methods and tools for the community.
Hobbies
When not doing science, I enjoy video gaming. You’ll see me online on Black Desert but I also try to slowly go through a back catalogue of Steam games. Cycling locally or going on Beat Saber constitutes my exercise. Away from the computer, I also have interest in playing the violin, doing embroidery, and playing card games.