William Niu

About Me

I’m a first-year Ph.D. student in the MIT Computational and Systems Biology program, co-advised by Ed Boyden and Sam Peng. My research is generously supported by the Hertz Fellowship, PD Soros Fellowship, and DOE Computational Science Graduate Fellowship.

Before joining MIT, I completed my B.A. in Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Physics at the University of Pennsylvania, advised by Arjun Raj. In my undergraduate research, I developed Piscis, a deep learning algorithm for spot detection in fluorescence microscopy images. I also contributed to the development of the backend of NimbusImage, an open-source cloud-computing platform for biological image analysis.

Research Interests

Proteins are fascinating molecular machines responsible for most of life’s essential functions. They convert our food into energy, allow our neurons to fire, and enable our immune system to fight disease. Yet, our understanding of exactly how proteins function remains limited by the tools we have to observe them in action. One of the biggest challenges facing the field of protein biology is being able to visualize and predict the interactions between proteins and other molecules, such as other proteins, DNA, or RNA, in their native cellular environments. In my graduate research, I aim to develop a method for single-molecule in situ protein sequencing and apply it to create the first complete spatial proteome of a cell.

Publications

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