Scientific Program

Time

Session

Location

Panel Discussion Session 1A:

Leveraging Human Tissue-Based Models for Personalized Medicine

View Speaker & Moderator Bios >>

Speakers:

• Young-Kwon Hong, PhD (Surgery)
  "Neighbors Matter: Fibroblast Control of Lymphatic Growth on a Chip"
• Jenny M. Hogstrom, PhD (Genetics)
  "Patient-Derived Cancer Organoids as a Platform to Investigate Treatment Resistance and Novel Drug Targets"
• Ioannis Vlachos, PhD (Pathology)
  "Empowering the Reverse Translation Pathway with Archived Human Samples"

Moderators: 

• Michael J. Grey, PhD (Gastroenterology & Hepatology) 
• Z. Gordon Jiang, MD, PhD (Gastroenterology & Hepatology) 

Panel Discussion Session 1B: 

Metabolism and Imaging

View Speaker & Moderator Bios >>

Speakers:

• Chi Ngai Chan, PhD (Virology and Vaccine Research)
  "Know Your (Cell) Neighborhood: Exploring Spatial-omics with the TTU"
• Aaron Grant, PhD (Radiology)
  "Imaging Metabolism with Hyperpolarized Carbon-13 MRI"
• Zsu-Zsu Chen, MD, MPH (Endocrinology)
  "The Power of Repeated Measures: Longitudinal Proteomics Reveal Distinct Biological Pathways Associated with Diabetes Compared to Single Timepoint Measurements"

Moderators:

• Malika Boudries, PhD (Virology and Vaccine Research)
• Rohit Kulkarni, MD, PhD (Joslin Diabetes Center)

Welcome & Announcements

• Gyongyi Szabo, MD, PhD, Chief Academic Officer, BIDMC/BILH
• Pete Healy, President, BIDMC and BILH Metro Division
• George Q. Daley, MD, PhD, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, HMS (Video Greeting)

New Faculty Flash Talks 

View Speaker Bios >>

• Kipp Weiskopf, MD, PhD (Hematology Oncology)
  "High-Throughput Engineering of Novel Bispecific Antibodies for Cancer"
• Dominik Glodzik (Pathology)
  "Algorithms for Deciphering Mutational Signatures from Cancer Genomes and their Clinical Applications"
• Hadine Joffe, MD, MSc (Psychiatry)
  "Clinical Reproductive Neuroscience: Endocrine and Sleep Drivers of Mood Disturbance in Women"
• Giada Bianchi, MD (Hematology Oncology)
  "Identifying and Targeting Vulnerabilities within the Proteostasis Network for the Treatment of Amyloid light-chain (AL) Amyloidosis"
• Shadab A. Rahman, PhD, MPH (Psychiatry)
  "Reprogramming Human Circadian Biology: From Mechanisms to Clinical Translation"

Keynote Presentation

View Speaker Bio >>

Donald E. Ingber, MD, PhD, Wyss Institute
"Human Organ Chips for Disease Modeling, Therapeutic Assessment, and Personalized Medicine"

Panel Discussion Session 2A:

Human Models of Disease: Patient-Specific Approaches

View Speaker & Moderator Bios >>

Speakers:

• Martin Pollak, MD (Nephrology) 
  "Modeling Human Kidney Disease"
• Steven Freedman, MD, PhD (Gastroenterology & Hepatology)
  "Focusing on Fatty Acid Metabolism from Bench to Bedside: Advancing Patient Outcomes in CF, Cancer & Preterm Infant Disease"
• Jeantine Lunshof, PhD (Genetics, Harvard Medical School)
  "Models & Twins for All - What, When, for Whom?"

Moderators: 

• Aarti Asnani, MD (Cardiovascular Medicine) 
• Yuri Popov, MD, PhD (Gastroenterology/Hepatology)

Panel Discussion Session 2B:

Pursuing Health Equity: From Patients to Populations

View Speaker & Moderator Bios >>

Speakers:

• Stephen Mein, MD (Pulmonary and Critical Care)
  "How Policy Shapes Health Equity: Lessons from Medicaid"
• Ashley L. O'Donoghue, PhD (Pulmonary and Critical Care)
  "Building Prospective Equity Surveillance into Healthcare Delivery Science"
• Talya Salant, MD, PhD (Medicine)
  "The Road Less Traveled: Research at Community Health Centers"

Moderators:

• Yarden Fraiman, MD, PhD (Neonatology)
• Mary Rice, MD, MPH (Pulmonary and Critical Care)

Panel Discussion Session 3:

Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Research Applications

View Speaker & Moderator Bios >>

Speakers:

• Daniel Goldenholz, MD, PhD, FAES (Neurology)
  "Leading a Lab Composed of a Country Full of Geniuses in a Data Center"
• Eyal Klang, MD (Radiology)
  "Generative AI in Healthcare"
• Griffin M. Weber, MD, PhD (Medicine and Biomedical Informatics)
  "Using i2b2 and A.I. to Query and Download EHR Data for Research at BILH"

Moderators:

• Yuri Quintana, PhD, FACMI, FIAHSI, FAMIA (Clinical Informatics)
• Malika Boudries, PhD (Virology and Vaccine Research)

5^th Pitch It! Competition for the ‘2026 Ignition Grants’

View Speaker & Moderator Bios >>

Pitchers:

• Trudy D. Pang, MD, MSc (Neurology)
  “Novel EKG System for Seizure Detection, Prediction, and Cardiac Monitoring“
• Dhruv Singhal, MD (Surgery)
  “The Lynk: An Implantable Device to Prevent Lymphedema”
• Wenyi Wei, PhD (Pathology)
  “Pan-DUBTAC Mediated Stabilization of the cGAS Tumor Suppressor Protein via Multi-Deubiquitinase (DUB) Engagement“
• Kipp Weiskopf, MD, PhD (Hematology Oncology)
  “A LILRB1-directed ADC for Dual Targeting of Cancer and the Tumor Microenvironment”

Judges: 

• Christopher D. Breder, MD, PhD (Principal Manager, CIRCA-PhD LLC and BIDMC Venture Mentor)
• Michael Draper, PhD (Executive Director, AIM² Discovery Center & Internal Medical Research Unit at Pfizer)
• Uciane Scarlett, PhD (Partner, Founder, Stealth VC, Former Investor, MPM Capital, OSE, & Atlas Venture)
• Mark Tepper, PhD (Retired Biotech Executive/Entrepreneur, Entrepreneur in Residence at BIDMC)