Computational Biologist Career Profile

A Day in the Life

A day in the work life of Dr. Setty includes many responsibilities and can vary greatly from day to day. Dr. Setty is responsible for defining scientific questions for his lab and for determining what methods should be used in the research. One important part to keeping his lab running is writing grants in order to fund his lab’s research. He also recruits, manages, and mentors lab members who have different levels of experience and include post-doctoral researchers, PhD students, and undergraduate students. Dr. Setty writes and publishes papers to share his research. In addition to the responsibilities of leading his lab, he teaches computational biology and data analysis courses, serves on mentoring committees for PhD students, and helps with the peer-review process by reviewing research papers from other scientists to make sure others are achieving the high standards needed to publish.

Despite loving the freedom and flexibility of his job, it comes with a major challenge: time management. With so many different responsibilities, it is often difficult to make sure everything gets done on time while at the same time prioritizing scientific innovation. He noted that “despite being quite stressful, my job gives me visceral satisfaction and happiness.” In addition to doing this challenging work, Dr. Setty and his lab group have a lot of social activities together. They go out for lab dinners, picnics, and are planning an escape room visit!

Setty Lab Research

Dr. Setty’s lab is working to discover new aspects of cell differentiation using the power of computation. As he explained it, all multicellular organisms develop from a single-cell through a series of cell divisions, in which one cell becomes two, two cells becomes four, and so on. This process continues throughout life to replenish cells as they die (your cells are constantly turning over, dying, and being replaced by new cells). The new cells start off as stem cells – a special type of cells which are capable of turning into different cell types. Dr. Setty’s lab group studies the process through which a stem cell creates different cell types, also known as cell differentiation. He uses cutting edge technologies that measure hundreds of quantities from thousands of cells and develops complex equations, or computational algorithms, to gain insights into stem cell differentiation. He uses machine learning to develop these algorithms, meaning that the algorithms can actually improve themselves as they process more data. Machine learning allows researchers to find patterns in very large and messy datasets that humans aren’t capable of analyzing without the help of computers. Recent research shows that many of the mechanisms that drive healthy differentiation are hijacked by cancer cells to grow abnormally. Dr. Setty’s lab therefore studies the mechanisms in stem cell differentiation and uses them as a healthy baseline to understand what goes wrong and how they are hijacked in cancer.

The best part of Dr. Setty’s job is having complete scientific freedom. He feels very privileged to have the opportunity to pursue a career in research and try to answer fundamental biological questions that he cares deeply about. He greatly enjoys the multi-disciplinary nature of his lab’s work: interacting with computer scientists, mathematicians, molecular biologists, and cancer immunologists.

Dr. Setty has been a professor at Fred Hutch since January 2021. He's enjoying getting to know the trails in the mountains surrounding Seattle, including beautiful Mount Rainier. Moving forward, he hopes to build a thriving, innovative, and confident research group that pushes the boundaries of our understanding in stem cell and cancer biology.