NEXT
GENERATION
BIOTECH
DATE
April 30, 2026
TIME
6:00 – 9:00PM
VENUE
MIT Museum
EVENT PROGRAM
6:00 – 6:30
Reception
Mingle with the Hertz Community; enjoy light food and drinks.
6:30 – 7:00
Welcoming Remarks + The ‘Unpanel’
Wendy Connors
President, Hertz Foundation
Liyam Chitayat, Hertz Fellow, MIT
Lightning Talks from Station Leads
7:00 – 9:00
Stations are Live!
Connect with station leads in the areas of biotech exploration shown below: ask questions, be curious!
STATIONS
AI x BIOLOGY
Accelerating discovery through machine learning and generative design.
Jeff Brown II
2023 Hertz Fellow
David Li
2022 Hertz Fellow
Shuvom Sadhuka
2022 Hertz Fellow
Vikram Sundar
2020 Hertz Fellow
With biology generating more data than any mind can parse, researchers are building new tools that speed discovery—training LLMs to design proteins from scratch, map brain architecture, and discover beneficial molecules hidden in nature.
BIOSECURITY & ETHICS
Safeguarding innovation for global resilience
Life-saving vaccines or dangerous pathogens? The same tools can be used to create either. That’s why building frameworks—scientific, policy and ethical ones—is essential for responsible innovation that safely advances critical biological research.
FROM RESEARCH TO REALITY
Cross-sector dialogue between researchers, founders, and supporters
It can take years, hundreds of millions of dollars, and overcoming steep regulatory, market, and clinical hurdles before a lab breakthrough reaches patients. From AI to geopolitics to the next wave of breakthrough biology, see how capital flows in science and how a discovery becomes a company.
NEURO-TECHNOLOGY
Engineering tools to decode, restore, and connect the brain
Tiny open-source microscopes, novel brain-recording technologies, scalable methods for reading thousands of neural connections from small slices of human brain tissue—these are some of the tools helping us map the 86 billion neurons, connected by trillions of synapses, of the human brain, leading to new treatments for neurological conditions.
NEXT-GEN THERAPEUTICS
Engineered cells, programmable proteins, gene editing
The next generation of medicine won’t just treat symptoms, it will rewrite the instructions. Harnessing the microbiome and designing new therapeutics is as much about engineering as it is biology, with tools that make possible everything from nanoparticle delivery systems to bacteria-based consumer health products.
Celebrate our Fellows during
Hertz Fund Giving Week!
Gifts made April 27-May 3 are matched up to $40,000 and support the Make History Campaign.
