DrDaniel Hesselson

Dan Hesselson leads the Biomedical AI Centre at the Centenary Institute and is an Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Sydney. He completed his graduate training in genetics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he studied cell migration in C. elegans with Judith Kimble, and developed a strong interest in tissue regeneration during his postdoctoral fellowship at UCSF with Didier Stainier.
The Hesselson lab combines cutting-edge experimental biology with advances in machine learning and AI to engineer proteins with capabilities that are often new-to-nature. Our work sits at the interface of protein engineering, cell biology, genetics, and computational design, with a strong focus on questions that are both mechanistically interesting and translationally important.
We are passionate about training the next generation of interdisciplinary scientists and welcome students from biological, biomedical, computational, and engineering backgrounds. Honours and PhD students in the lab have the opportunity to work on ambitious projects, develop both experimental and quantitative skills, and contribute to a collaborative research environment shaped by curiosity, creativity, and real-world impact.