Each year, the CHOP Research Institute celebrates the groundbreaking basic, clinical, behavioral, and translational research taking place at CHOP during our annual Poster Day and Scientific Symposium. This year's symposium talks will highlight the remarkable breakthroughs achieved by CHOP in Big Data, Omics, and AI.
The 2026 Poster Day and Symposium will take place on Monday, May 4th, Tuesday, May 5th and Wednesday, May 6th. Symposium talks will take place in the 1st floor auditorium in the Hub for Clinical Collaboration. Poster sessions will be held in the Colket Translational Research Building (CTRB) lobby. A reception and awards ceremony will be held on May 6th in the Hub.
During this in-person celebration of research, attendees will have the opportunity to learn about the exciting work of our faculty and trainees and network with others across campus. All members of the CHOP and Penn community are welcome to attend regardless of research focus or clinical specialty!
Please Note: Photographs for the purpose of publicity and marketing will take place at this event.
Poster Session A
CTRB Lobby
Poster Session B
CTRB Lobby
Break
Welcome
Hub Auditorium
Session I Talks
Topic: Leading Edge Technologies
"EHR-Neuroimaging: translational research on repurposed clinical brain MRIs from the electronic health record"
Aaron Alexander-Bloch, MD, PhD
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry
"Context Is Everything: Bayesian Multi-Omics Inference"
Tristan Hayeck, PhD
Assistant Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
"Multimodal Attention Is All You Need"
Kai Tan, PhD
Professor of Pediatrics
"From Complex Data to Biological Mechanisms with Knowledge Graphs"
Deanne M. Taylor, PhD
Associate Professor of Pediatrics
Hub Auditorium
Break / Grab Lunch
Hub Lobby
Science Slam (Flash Talks) and Lunch
Hub Auditorium
Break
Session II Talks
Topic: Diagnostics
"Next-Gen Cytogenomics in the NICU: Rapid detection of structural variants using genome sequencing"
Laura K. Conlin, PhD
Associate Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine
"Tiny lungs, big potential: towards breath-based diagnosis of malaria"
Audrey Odom John, MD, PhD
Professor of Pediatrics and Microbiology
"From translational research to clinical diagnostics: building the pipeline"
Stephen R. Master, MD, PhD
Associate Professor of Laboratory Medicine
"Insights from the gut-kidney axis of kidney stone disease: development of urine metabolomic biomarkers of disease severity"
Gregory E. Tasian, MD, MSc, MSCE
Professor of Surgery and Epidemiology
Hub Auditorium
Break
Omics Data Utilization Grants Session
"Genomic Analysis of Variants in Unsolved Rare Disease"
Anthony Gacita, MD, PhD
Pediatrics Resident Physician (PGY‑4)
"Understanding the Genetics of Human Brain Rhythms: A GWAS of EEG Spectral Features"
Jillian McKee, MD, PhD
Assistant Professor of Neurology
"Omics to improve clinical care for children with biliary malformations"
Alanna Strong, MD, PhD
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
"Investigating the genetic basis of neuroendocrine cell hyperplasia of infancy (NEHI)"
Sylvia Michki, PhD
Bioinformatics Scientist III
Hub Auditorium
OMICS Networking Reception
Hub Lobby
Grand Rounds
"Harnessing Real World Evidence for Better Clinical Trials with AI"
Fei Wang, PhD
Frances and John L. Leob Professor of Medical Informatics, Weill Cornell Medicine, Cornell University
Hub Auditorium
Poster Session C
CTRB Lobby
Break
Keynote Presentation and Lunch
"Computer to Clinic: Prediction Potential and Pitfalls in Pervasive Population Personal Genome Screening"
Steven E. Brenner, PhD
Professor, University of California, Berkeley
Hub Auditorium
Break
Session III Talks
Topic: Therapeutics / Drug Discovery
"Dravet syndrome: From genetics, preclinical models, and mechanism, towards human therapy"
Ethan M. Goldberg, MD, PhD
Associate Professor of Neurology, Neuroscience, and Pediatrics
"From Undruggable to Degradable: Team KOODAC's Journey in Targeted Protein Degradation for Childhood Cancers"
Yael P. Mossé, MD
Professor of Pediatrics
"Creating an environment for therapeutic development in the leukodystrophies"
Adeline L. Vanderver, MD
Professor of Pediatrics
"ATLAS-TIL: A Universal Functional Selection of Tumor-Infiltrating Cytotoxic T Cells"
Lan Lin, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
Hub Auditorium
Break
Session IV Talks
Topic: Preclinical through application
"What If You Could Ask the Entire Health System?"
Ian M. Campbell, MD, PhD
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
"Integrating AI and Large-Scale Genomics for Cardiovascular Discovery and Clinical Application"
Anurag Verma, PhD
Assistant Professor of Medicine and Informatics
"Scalable Multi-Modal Data Enablement via RADIANT"
Allison Heath, PhD
Director of Data Technology and Innovation
"Making AI Understandable When It Matters Most: Infant Sepsis in Focus"
Robert W. Grundmeier, MD
Professor of Pediatrics
Hub Auditorium
Break
Keynote Presentation
"How can AI Models Change Biological Discovery?"
Regina Barzilay, PhD
School of Engineering Distinguished Professor for AI and Health, MIT
Hub Auditorium
Reception
Hub Lobby