Originally from Vienna, Austria, Daniel has been fortunate to have the chance to learn from great mentors and scientists. His scientific journey took him from his hometown Vienna, where he received his PhD, via a post-doctoral fellowship to Sydney at Macquarie University before he got the opportunity to join the Max-Planck-Institute of Colloids and Interfaces as a group leader and start his independent career. In 2017 he returned to Australia as an ACR Future fellow and joined the Institute for Glycomics at Griffith University as a research leader to establish the Advanced Mass Spectrometry Laboratory, and now Australian Cancer Research Foundation (ACRF) International Centre for Cancer Glycomics. His team is dedicated to developing and using glycomics and glycoproteomics, two technologies that allow translation the glyco-code of cells, to decipher how glycosylation is involved in the regulation and pathogenesis of diseases such as cancer, but also in stem cell signalling as well as the evolution of the glyco-code in animals. This fundamental understanding of the glyco-code regulation opens unprecedented opportunities for the diagnosis and treatment of diseases such as cancer, but also delivers valuable insights into the transmission pathways of zoonotic pathogens.