Since first teaching himself how to code when he should’ve been studying for the MCAT, Dan has been obsessed with using science and technology to hack outstanding challenges in health and society. Dan was on a strict pre-med track when he first learned about flow. He had taken the MCAT, written essays—was literally waiting for interviews. Then two things happened. First, Dan began teaching himself how to code and became drawn to the AI/ML world. Second, he met an entrepreneurial professor who had just made a break from his own career at the NIH to start the Precision Immunology Center at NYU: Pratip Chattopadhyay. To the great horror of his parents, Dan withdrew his application to med school and co-founded a platform for AI-powered flow analysis called TerraFlow Bio. TerraFlow screens every phenotype you could possibly measure within your dataset—the equivalent 10,000 manual hours—and comes back with key takeaways about your data. It then compares results to over one million PubMed papers, telling you not just “what” cell types correlate with outcome but also “why” they matter biologically in context of your study. It’s the equivalent of replicating 100,000 papers in just 24 hours! Working as CEO has allowed Dan to work more closely with longtime mentors like Pratip Chattopadhyay and Mike Stadnisky, themselves flow innovators with a long history at ISAC. Dan looks forward to using his positions in the LDP and CYTO Innovation Committee to pay it forward, helping the next generation of innovation leaders willing to bet everything on their bold ideas.

What inspired you to apply to the LDP or what are you looking forward to with the LDP?

Founding terraFlow allowed me to work more closely with longtime mentors like Pratip Chattopadhay and Mike Stadnisky. I’ve watched both mentors invest heavily into the ISAC community (Pratip was Scientific Chair for CYTO 2019, the same year Mike won the ISAC Innovation Award) and set industry standards in flow analysis. I want to leave a similar mark through my company and my science. The LDP Innovation Track allows me to enter a Zone of Genius of likeminded entrepreneurs and help give a platform to the next generation of founders willing to bet everything on a bold idea.

How did you get into Cytometry?

I was on a strict pre-med track when I first learned about flow. I had taken the MCAT, written essays—was literally waiting for interviews. Then two things happened. First, I starting teaching myself how to code and became drawn to the AI/ML world. Second, I met an entrepreneurial professor who had just made a break from his own career at the NIH to start the Precision Immunology Center at NYU: Dr. Pratip Chattopadhyay. Together, we founded a platform for AI-powered flow analysis called terraFlow.