High-Risk, High-Reward Research (HRHR)
High-Risk, High-Reward Research (HRHR)
2026 HRHR Symposium
March 4-6, 2026
2026 Symposium Agenda
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Wednesday, March 4, 2026
Agenda | |
|---|---|
| 1:00 PM - 1:05 PM | Welcome |
| 1:05 PM - 1:20 PM | Remarks from NIH Director |
Session 1 | |
| 1:20 PM - 1:40 PM | Jalal Ahmed, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Early Independence Award, 2021 A New Strategy to Advance CAR T Cell Therapy for Solid Tumors: Unlocking the Therapeutic Window Through Tumor Irradiation |
| 1:40 PM - 2:00 PM | Alexandros Poulopoulos, University of Maryland School of Medicine New Innovator Award, 2019 The Promise of Precision in Somatic Cell Genome Editing In Vivo |
| 2:00 PM - 2:20 PM | Erica Korb, University of Pennsylvania New Innovator Award, 2021 Defining the Lasting Transcriptomic, Epigenetic, and Proteomic Signatures of Memory |
| 2:20 PM - 2:40 PM | Annelise Barron, Stanford University, School of Medicine Pioneer Award, 2020 Alzheimer’s Disease is Caused by Dysregulation of Innate Immunity by Unperceived, Undiagnosed, and Untreated Polymicrobial Co-Infections—And Can Be Prevented |
| 2:40 PM - 3:00 PM | Aviad Hai, University of Wisconsin Madison New Innovator Award, 2020 Bioelectronic Contrast Agents (BECAs) for Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Neurophysiology |
| 3:00 PM - 3:20 PM | Break |
Session 2 | |
| 3:20 PM - 3:40 PM | Marcos Simoes-Costa, Harvard University New Innovator Award, 2019 Spatial Patterning of the Epigenome During Early Embryonic Development |
| 3:40 PM - 4:00 PM | Patricia Clark, University of Notre Dame Pioneer Award, 2021 Protein Folding Success Depends on the Direction and Speed of Polypeptide Chain Appearance |
| 4:00 PM - 4:20 PM | Andrew Miri, Northwestern University New Innovator Award, 2020 Instructive Influence of Motor Cortex on Muscle Activity During Ethological Motor Behavior |
| 4:20 PM - 4:40 PM | Peter Adams, Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute Transformative Research Award, 2020 Nucleosome Stability Safeguards Cell Identity, Stress Resilience and Healthy Aging |
| 4:40 PM - 5:00 PM | Liam Holt, NYU School of Medicine Transformative Research Award, 2021 Hypoglycemia In Motor-Neurons Impairs Nuclear Import and Leads to ALS Molecular Pathology |
| 5:30 PM - 6:30 PM | Happy Hour at Fialova, located in the Bethesdan Hotel 8120 Wisconsin Ave, Bethesda, MD 20814 |
Thursday, March 5, 2026
Agenda | |
|---|---|
| 9:00 AM - 9:10 AM | Program Remarks |
Session 3 | |
| 9:10 AM - 9:30 AM | Brian Litt, University of Pennsylvania Pioneer Award, 2020 Ghost in the Machine: An Implantable Device that Converses with Patients and Learns to Co-Manage Epilepsy |
| 9:30 AM - 9:50 AM | Margaux Pinney, University of California, Berkeley Early Independence Award, 2022 Leveraging Evolutionary-Scale Enzymology to Map and Predict Catalytic Landscapes |
| 9:50 AM - 10:10 AM | Lucas Cheadle, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory/Howard Hughes Medical Institute New Innovator Award, 2022 Maternal-Fetal Immune Conflict in a Mouse Model of Neurodevelopmental Disorders |
| 10:10 AM - 10:30 AM | Polina Anikeeva, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Pioneer Award, 2021 Fusion of Nanomagnetic and Viral Tools to Interrogate Brain-Body Circuits |
| 10:30 AM - 10:45 AM | Break |
| 10:45 AM - 11:45 PM | Poster Session 1 |
| 11:45 PM - 1:00 PM | Lunch |
| 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM | Poster Session 2 |
Session 4 | |
| 2:00 PM - 2:20 PM | Alice Eunjung Lee, Boston Children’s Hospital / Harvard Medical School New Innovator Award, 2020 Landscape and Mechanisms of Transposon-Associated Alternative Splicing |
| 2:20 PM - 2:40 PM | Susan Rosenberg, Baylor College of Medicine Pioneer Award, 2020 The DAMPRs: Human DNA Damage-Ameliorating Proteins for Slowing Age-Related Diseases |
| 2:40 PM - 3:00 PM | Stephen Fried, Johns Hopkins University New Innovator Award, 2020 Protein Folding in the AI Era: What’s Left to Discover? |
| 3:00 PM - 3:20 PM | Joseph Nadeau, Maine Medical Center Transformative Research Award, 2021 The Non-Genetic Non-Environmental Origins of the Missing 50% of Disease Risk |
| 3:20 PM - 3:40 PM | Break |
Session 5 | |
| 3:40 PM - 4:00 PM | Steven Jonas, University of California, Los Angeles Early Independence Award, 2019 Lipid Nanoparticle-Based Delivery of CRISPR/Cas9 Machinery Enables Site-Specific Integration of CFTR and Mutation-Agnostic Disease Rescue |
| 4:00 PM - 4:20 PM | Summer Thyme, UMass Chan Medical School New Innovator Award, 2022 Using Zebrafish to Study Neurodevelopmental Disorders and Discover Treatments |
| 4:20 PM - 4:40 PM | Kafui Dzirasa, Duke/Howard Hughes Medical Institute Pioneer Award, 2022 Precision Editing of Brain Circuits Using an Engineered Electrical Synapse |
| 4:40 PM - 5:00 PM | Subhamoy Dasgupta, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center New Innovator Award, 2020 Metabolic Pathway in the Nucleus Controls Epigenetic Plasticity |
Friday, March 6, 2026
Session 6 | |
|---|---|
| 9:00 AM - 9:20 AM | Jia Niu, Boston College New Innovator Award, 2019 CRISPR-Hybrid: An Intracellular Directed Evolution Platform for Functional RNA Aptamers in Multiplexed Gene Regulation |
| 9:20 AM - 9:40 AM | Ruidahri Jackson, Harvard Medical School, Immunology Department New Innovator Award, 2021 Discovery of Functional Chimeric mRNA Encoded Proteins in Mammalian Immunity |
| 9:40 AM - 10:00 AM | Evgeny Kvon, University of California, Irvine New Innovator Award, 2022 Discovery of a Hidden DNA Element That Helps Switch On Genes from Afar |
| 10:00 AM - 10:20 AM | Ksenia Krasileva, University of California, Berkeley New Innovator Award, 2021 Cross Kingdom Health: Evolutionary Innovations in Innate Immunity |
| 10:20 AM - 10:35 AM | Break |
Session 7 | |
| 10:35 AM - 10:55 AM | Lei Stanley Qi, Stanford University Pioneer Award, 2023 Optogenetic RNA Relocalization Reveals Causal Pathological Drivers of Neural Function In Vivo |
| 10:55 AM - 11:15 AM | Qun Lu, University of South Carolina Transformative Research Award, 2021 Small Molecule Homeostatic Modulation of Neurodegenerative Diseases |
| 11:15 AM - 11:35 AM | Katherine Susa, University of California, San Francisco Early Independence Award, 2023 Structural Basis for Regulation of Frizzled-4 Signaling by the Co-Receptor Tetraspanin-12 |
| 11:35 AM - 11:55 AM | Thomas Longden, University of Maryland Baltimore New Innovator Award, 2020 Vascular Signaling Plasticity Reprograms Brain Hemodynamics to Optimize Learning |
| 11:55 AM - 12:00 PM | Closing Remarks |
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