Schedule

Keynote Speaker: 

Victoria Puccini de Castro 

Victória (she/her/hers) is a PhD student from São Paulo, Brazil. She originally studied Veterinary Medicine in her country but moved to the U.S. to finish her undergraduate degree and received a Bachelor's of Science in Biology from Northeastern Illinois University, in Chicago. Currently, she is finishing her PhD in Developmental Biology at Yale University. Her current work involves investigating the dynamics of the nuclear envelope during cell division. 

Kristen Wells-Wrasman

I lead computational biology initiatives across multiple research programs at the Barbara Davis Diabetes Center at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, where I develop and implement advanced analytical approaches to understand the complexities of diabetes. Through long-term collaborations with experimental biologists, I bridge computational and biological insights to drive discoveries in beta cell biology and immune system dynamics in Type 1 Diabetes. My integrated approach spans multiple scales - from single-cell genomics to systems-level analyses - allowing me to explore connections across T cells, B cells, macrophages, and pancreatic cells. This cross-disciplinary perspective enables me to identify patterns and mechanisms that might be missed in isolated analyses. 

Joshua Preston

Josh is a dual degree student pursuing his MD at Emory University School of Medicine and his PhD in Nutrition and Health Sciences in Emory's Laney Graduate School. He received his BS in Biology from the University of Kentucky in 2018. He completed his first three years of medical school from 2019-2022 and began his PhD in 2023. Josh will pursue his graduate studies in Dr. Dean Jones' Clinical Biomarkers Lab in conjunction with Dr. Rafael de Cabo's lab at the NIH National Institute on Aging Intramural Research Program. Josh's research interests include aging, metabolomics, biomarker discovery, transplant biology, frailty, diabetes, women's health, environmental toxicology, nutritional interventions, tumor metabolism, and surgical applications of metabolomics. His clinical interests include trauma and acute care surgery, critical care nutrition, geriatrics, and endocrinology. Josh has the long-term career goal of being an academic surgeon-scientist and aspires to practice surgery while also maintaining an active, basic-science research operation. 

Kevin Spehar

Kevin is a 4th year MD-PhD student at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He graduated from Washington University in St. Louis in 2019 majoring in Biomedical Engineering and Biochemistry with minors in computer science, electrical engineering, and bioinformatics. At WashU, he developed a novel super-resolution imaging method to study amyloid structures at nanometer resolution for extended time periods in the Bieschke and Lew Labs. Afterwards, he worked at the National Institute on Aging, where he studied aging in hematopoietic stem cells in the Beerman Lab. As an MD-PhD student in the Castellano Lab, Kevin aims to better characterize glial biology in aging and Alzheimer's disease, and plans to pursue his clinical interests in geriatrics.

Ro Whitten

I am a graduate student at the University of Maryland Baltimore working in the Poulopoulos lab. I am currently starting my fourth year of my Ph.D. My research focuses on the cell adhesion molecule Neuroligin 3 and it's role in Glioblastoma. I work primarily with virus development and focused ultrasound.

Quinn Tufino

Quinn is a Molecular Oncology Research Technician at Georgetown University Medical Center. He graduated from Ithaca College in May 2024 with a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry and Neuroscience Minor. He completed his Honors Thesis in the Smith Lab, where he worked on synthesizing novel components of a biomimetic hydrogel medical adhesive. In September 2024, he began working as a Research Technician in the Toretsky Lab at Georgetown University, which focuses on investigating the molecular mechanisms of the pediatric cancer, Ewing’s Sarcoma, to develop new therapeutic drugs for the disease.