FAES Science Insight Series
This series invites Principal Investigators to share cutting-edge research and developments in their fields. Each session includes a 40-45 minute presentation followed by a Q&A or journal club discussion, fostering deeper insights and scholarly exchange. This is an in-person event held in the FAES Learning Labs in Building 10 located on the NIH Main Campus in Bethesda, MD. Lunch is provided on a first come first served basis.
Nominate a speaker from this list of NIH principal investigators here!
Upcoming Science Insight Series Events
From Gene Discovery to Mechanistic Treatments: Decoding the Complexities of Skeletal Dysplasias
October 15, 2026 from 11:45 – 1:00 pm ET
Speaker: Carlos R. Ferreira, MD, Clinical Tenure-Track Investigator, Unit on Skeletal Genomics, Division of Translational Medicine, NICHD
The lecture will describe our investigation of skeletal disorders, focusing on those affecting the FGF23/phosphate axis or those with an unknown cause. We will discuss the use of genomic and other approaches to identify and characterize the underlying causes and mechanisms of genetic skeletal disorders.
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Environmental Contaminants and Cancer: Novel Strategies to Understand Risks
November 10, 2026 from 11:45 – 1:00 pm ET
Speaker: Rena Jones, Ph.D., M.S., Senior Investigator, Occupational & Environmental Epidemiology Branch, NCI/DCEG
This seminar draws on Dr. Jones' multidisciplinary research program to illustrate epidemiologic approaches to investigating environmental exposures and cancer risk. It highlights innovative exposure assessment methods used to support etiologic analyses, with examples from studies of widespread drinking water contaminants and air pollutants. Methodological challenges, key knowledge gaps, and priorities for future research will also be discussed.
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The Early Life Origins of Health Disparities
December 15, 2026 from 11:45 – 1:00 pm ET
Speaker: Stephen E. Gilman, Sc.D., Senior Investigator, Social and Behavioral Sciences Branch, NICHD/DIPHR
Why do socioeconomic, racial, and ethnic disparities in health emerge at the very beginning of life – during the prenatal period – impact the course of child development, and confer risk for morbidity and mortality throughout the lifespan? Dr. Gilman’s lecture will address this question in the context of decades of research conducted using data from the Collaborative Perinatal Project (CPP), the largest pregnancy cohort ever established in the United States. It was directed by the scientists at the NIH and is still generating new knowledge. Data from the CPP reveal insights into the social determinants of early child development and the early childhood roots of health inequities in adulthood.
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Previous Science Insight Series Events
Retrotransposons and Retroviruses; DNA on the Move
January 22, 2026 from 11:45 – 1:00 pm ET
Speaker: Henry Levin, Ph.D., Senior Investigator, NICHD, Ph.D. from University of California, Berkeley
Transposable elements (TEs) are mobile forms of DNA that dominate the eukaryotic genome. With regulatory sequences and high copy numbers TEs form regulatory networks that drive genome evolution. Our use of high read sequencing has identified layered mechanisms of TEs that enhance survival when confronted with environmental stress.
Organoids and Organotypic Slice Cultures: A New Way to Tackle Human-Specific Pathology in AD/ADRD?
February 24, 2026 from 11:45 – 1:00 pm ET
Speaker: Elise Marsan, Ph.D., Investigator, Center for Alzheimer's and Related Dementias, NIA; Ph.D. from Sorbonne Universities; Neuroscientist
This talk presents human iPSC-derived multicellular organoids and organotypic slice cultures from primate brain as innovative models to study neurodegeneration in Alzheimer’s and related dementias. These systems enable investigation of primate-specific neurons and circuits, revealing cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying selective neuronal vulnerability in AD/ADRD-affected brain regions.
Leukocytes on the Move: The Chemokine System Directs Traffic
March 12, 2026 from 11:45 – 1:00 pm ET
Speaker: Joshua Farber M.D. Chief, Inflammation Biology Section, NIAID
The immune system must be ubiquitous and mobile. The chemokine family consists of a family of more than 40 chemotactic proteins that regulate leukocyte trafficking. My talk will include an overview of this family and present some of my laboratory’s recent data on chemokines in human T cell trafficking and cancer.
Leveraging Data Science to Advance Maternal and Child Health Research
May 21, 2026 from 11:45 – 1:00 pm ET
Speaker: Quynh Nguyen, Ph.D., MSPH., Investigator at NINR and director of the HashtagHealth Lab
Dr. Nguyen will lead a discussion on harnessing data science to better understand and address maternal and child health disparities. She will highlight examples from her own research, including: 1) developing and evaluating an AI-powered health education chatbot to improve maternal and infant health outcomes; and 2) applying computer vision models to Google Street View images to generate national indicators of neighborhood-built environments and investigate their associations with health outcomes, such as motor vehicle collision fatalities among children.
Trust Through Knowledge Grounding: AI Agents in Biomedicine
June 9, 2026 from 11:45 – 1:00 pm ET
Speaker: Zhiyong Lu, PhD FACMI, FIAHSI, Senior Investigator, NIH, Professor of Computer Science (Adjunct), UIUC
Recent advances in large language models (LLMs) have enabled powerful AI agents for biomedical research, yet their adoption in high-stakes settings remains limited by concerns about hallucination, opacity, and reliability. In this talk, I discuss how expert-curated domain knowledge can be used to help mitigate these challenges in general-purpose LLMs. Drawing on real-world systems and case studies such as GeneAgent (Nature Methods 2025), I will highlight design principles for building AI agents that are scientifically sound, interpretable, and suitable for biomedical research and clinical applications.
Microscopic Imaging of the Retina in Patients Using Adaptive Optics
July 21, 2026 from 11:45 – 1:00 pm ET
Speaker: Johnny Tam, Ph.D., Senior Investigator, NEI
Adaptive optics is a technology used in modern large astronomical telescopes for correcting aberrations in earth’s atmosphere. In this talk, I will describe how adaptive optics has transformed the field of retinal imaging, with examples of new clinical insights from studying patients with rare diseases at the NIH Clinical Center.
From Snapshots to Signals: Using AI to Personalize Addiction Care
August 6, 2026 from 11:45 – 1:00 pm ET
Speaker: Brenda Curtis, Ph.D., MSPH, Chief, Technology and Translational Research Section, National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)
Addiction risk changes between clinic visits, but care systems often detect relapse, craving, and treatment disengagement only after they occur. This talk explores how artificial intelligence, digital phenotyping, smartphone sensing, and language analysis can help identify changing risk states earlier and support more timely, personalized, and ethically bounded addiction care.
Sex Differences in Brain Aging and Disease
September 3, 2026 from 11:45 – 1:00 pm ET
Speaker: Alex DeCasien, Ph.D., Principal Investigator and Head of the Computational and Evolutionary Neurogenomics Unit at the National Institute on Aging (NIA)
This talk will explore sex differences in brain aging and neurodegenerative disease, focusing on how sex chromosomes and sex hormones change across the human lifespan. Drawing on genomic, transcriptomic, and hormonal studies, we will discuss how these biological factors influence brain health, disease risk, and resilience, highlighting implications for precision medicine and therapeutic development.
Past Science Insight Series Events
2025 Science Insight Series Events
