Dr Naik is a graduate of the University of QLD (Microbiology & Biochemistry) where he did Honours with Prof. David Hume on macrophage activation by CpG DNA. After a 2 year hiatus in London, he returned to Melbourne to do his PhD with Prof. Ken Shortman on dendritic cell development at WEHI. It was here he gained an interest in single cell tracking and fate determination in biology, and was awarded his PhD in 2006. Interested in the emerging technology of ‘cellular barcoding’ Dr Naik did his postdoc in the laboratory of Prof. Ton Schumacher at the Netherlands Cancer Institute, where he traced the single cell output of haematopoietic stem and progenitor cells in vivo. After returning to WEHI in 2013, he was later appointed as a Laboratory Head in the Molecular Medicine and Immunology Divisions where his lab uses single cell systems biology to investigate cancer biology and immunology. He also leads the Single Cell Open Research Endeavour (SCORE) at WEHI – a collaborative centre for single cell technology, experimental design and computational projects, and is co-host of Ask The Doctor and Catalyst on the ABC.