David completed his undergraduate studies and PhD research at the University of Wollongong, followed by a post-doctoral position at the Garvan Institute, focusing on the functional characterisation of individual proteins in the behaviour of cancer cells. Pursuing the idea that these cancer-related proteins do not act in isolation, but are instead embedded within dynamic networks, David undertook a second post-doctoral position at Systems Biology Ireland in University College Dublin.

After establishing a research group at Systems Biology Ireland, David received a Future Research Leader grant from Cancer Institute NSW and returned to the Garvan Institute as head of the Network Biology group. His research group now focuses on combining computational modelling with novel proteomic and single-cell technologies to investigate how alterations in dynamic signalling networks can lead to tumour progression and therapeutic resistance.