2026 ARCHIVES

Data Platforms & Storage Infrastructure

Optimize Data Platforms for Scale, Speed, Performance, and Cost Efficiency

May 20 - 21, 2026

Life sciences data volumes are exploding, driving the need for scalable, secure, and sustainable infrastructure. From cloud-based platforms and high-performance computing to AI-driven storage optimization, organizations are rethinking how they manage, integrate, and govern critical data. This track explores cutting-edge approaches to storage, processing, and interoperability, offering real-world strategies for balancing speed, performance, cost, and compliance. Learn how industry leaders are advancing large-scale data management and shaping the future of data infrastructure in life sciences.

Tuesday, May 19

8:30 amRecommended Pre-Conference Workshops and Symposia*

On Tuesday, May 19, 2026, Cambridge Healthtech Institute is pleased to offer six pre-conference Workshops scheduled across two time slots (9:00 am–12:00 pm and 1:15–4:15 pm) and three Symposia from 8:30 am–3:45 pm. All are designed to be instructional, interactive, and provide in-depth information on a specific topic. They allow for one-on-one interaction and provide a great way to explain more technical aspects that would otherwise not be covered during the main conference tracks that take place Wednesday–Thursday.

*Separate registration required. Additional details:

Symposia: www.bio-itworldexpo.com/symposia

Workshops: www.bio-itworldexpo.com/workshops

4:30 pm

Grab Your Seat! 25th Annual Golden Ticket Prize Giveaway & Organizer’s Remarks*

Cindy Crowninshield, Executive Event Director, Cambridge Healthtech Institute

*Must be present to win.

4:35 pm

Welcome Remarks from the City of Boston and the Office of Mayor Michelle Wu

Donald Wright, Interim Chief, Economic Opportunity & Inclusion Cabinet, City of Boston

4:40 pm PLENARY KEYNOTE INTRODUCTION:

Getting Ready for Effective AI: Starting with FAIR Principles

Diana Gamez Diaz, Head, Data & AI Engineering, RCH Solutions

4:50 pm PLENARY KEYNOTE PRESENTATION:

Rare Conversations: Explorations of the Research, Funding, and Advocacy for Rare Diseases

Thomas Bartlett, Ambassador, MG Uniter Myasthenia Gravis, Amgen

Catherine Brownstein, PhD, Manager, Molecular Genomics Core Facility, Boston Children's Hospital; Scientific Director, Manton Center for Orphan Disease Research Gene Discovery Core; Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School

Morgan Cheatham, MD, Partner, Head of Healthcare & Life Sciences, Breyer Capital

Sebastien Lefebvre, Head of Technology, Data and AI, Aurelis Insights

Dylan V. Livingston, Founder and President, The Alliance for Longevity Initiatives (A4LI)

William Van Etten, PhD, Co-Founder, CEO & Principal Scientist, StarfleetBio

Susan J. Ward, PhD, Founder & Executive Director, cTAP

In a unique plenary series of intimate conversations, we will explore the models, drivers, and challenges facing rare disease research. By uniting leaders in precision medicine, bioinformatics, national rare-disease infrastructure, and real-world legislative advocacy, we will give attendees an expansive, cross-disciplinary view of what’s required to deliver faster, more accurate, and more equitable rare-disease cures.

6:00 pmWelcome Reception & 25th Anniversary Celebration in the Exhibit Hall with Poster Viewing

The Bio-IT Kickoff Reception is a reunion, reconnect with friends, explore cutting-edge research, and celebrate innovation! This year, join us in celebrating the 25th Anniversary of Bio-IT World Conference & Expo with cake and champagne as we mark a quarter century of advancing science and technology. Enjoy poster presentations, networking, and vote for the Best of Show and Poster awards.

7:15 pmClose of Day

Wednesday, May 20

6:30 amBio-IT World’s 5K Rise and Shine Fun Run! (Sponsorship Opportunities Available)

RUN COORDINATORS:
Bridget Kotelly, Senior Conference Director, Cambridge Healthtech Institute
Eileen Murphy, Conference Producer, Cambridge Healthtech Institute

Lace up and join Bio-IT’s Coordinators for the Fun Run on Wednesday, May 20! Sprint, jog, walk, or talk-your-way-through—ALL abilities are welcome. This informal event is all about getting moving together. Full details to come…just don’t forget your sneakers!

7:00 amRegistration and Morning Coffee

8:00 am

Grab Your Seat! 25th Annual Golden Ticket Prize Giveaway & Organizer’s Remarks*

Allison Proffitt, Editorial Director, Bio-IT World and Clinical Research News

*Must be present to win.

8:05 am PLENARY KEYNOTE INTRODUCTION:

From Tools to AI Teammates: How AI-Driven Scientific Workbenches Can Redefine the Scientist User Experience

Sayan Lahiri, Vice President, CLOVERTEX

Life sciences R&D is drowning in powerful tools, massive data, and advanced infrastructure—yet scientists still spend too much time managing environments, rerunning workflows, and navigating fragmented systems. The real bottleneck is no longer data or compute; it is the scientist’s user experience. In this plenary, we explore how Clovertex’s AI-driven scientific workbench called NUMEN is changing the role of technology from passive infrastructure to an active scientific collaborator. By embedding AI directly into the workbench, these platforms guide scientists in choosing the right compute, optimizing cost, enforcing reproducibility, tracking metadata, and scaling experiments seamlessly from exploration to production—all while governance and security remain invisible. AI-powered workbenches create a shared operating model where science moves faster, results are trusted, and innovation scales. The future of life sciences R&D will not be defined by more tools—but by intelligent platforms that work like a teammate alongside scientists.

8:15 am PLENARY KEYNOTE PRESENTATION:

The Collaboration Breakthrough: How Federated Learning Is Rewriting the Rules of Drug Discovery

Mohammed AlQuraishi, PhD, Assistant Professor, Systems Biology, Columbia University

Jonathan B. Gilbert, PhD, Senior Director, Ecosystem Growth and Contributor Partnerships, Eli Lilly and Company

José-Tomás Prieto, PhD, Director of AI Programs, Apheris

Woody Sherman, PhD, Founder and Chief Innovation Officer, PsiThera

Christina Taylor, PhD, Senior Science Fellow and Computational Molecular Design Lead, Bayer

Arman Zaribafiyan, PhD, Head of Strategic Alliances, AI Simulation, SandboxAQ

The pharmaceutical industry sits on a collective treasure trove of proprietary structural biology data, yet competitive concerns have historically prevented the data sharing necessary to train the most powerful AI models for drug discovery. Federated learning is changing this paradigm, enabling biopharma companies to collaborate on AI model training while keeping sensitive data secure and confidential. This plenary session explores the groundbreaking AI Structural Biology (AISB) Network, where industry leaders are pooling proprietary protein-ligand structure data to collaboratively train OpenFold3, an AI model designed to predict molecular interactions with precision approaching X-ray crystallography. Through the federated computing platform, thousands of experimentally determined protein–small molecule structures remain securely at their original locations while contributing to a shared learning framework that no single organization could achieve alone. This session reveals how federated learning solves the industry's most persistent challenge: unlocking collective intelligence while protecting intellectual property. Attendees will hear directly from consortium leaders about:

The technical architecture enabling privacy-preserving collaborative AI training across competing organizations
Real-world implementation of federated learning platforms and computational governance frameworks
Strategic rationale for industry collaboration: why sharing model training beats going it alone
Impact and outcomes from early OpenFold3 results in predicting binding affinities and accelerating small molecule discovery
The future of collaborative AI in biopharma, from structural biology to clinical development

9:30 amCoffee Break in the Exhibit Hall with Poster Viewing (Sponsorship Opportunity Available)

Start your morning with coffee, connections, and cutting-edge research! Enjoy poster presentations, network in the Exhibit Hall, vote for awards, and a chance at a fabulous raffle prize!

10:15 am

Organizer's Welcome Remarks

Kaitlyn Barago, Director, Production Operations and Communications, Cambridge Healthtech Institute

10:20 am

Chairperson's Remarks

Sriram Krishnamurthy, Director, GD-IT, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

10:25 am

Building a Validated, Multi-Lingual Analytics Ecosystem on a Shared Data Platform: Key Lessons from Practice

Anand Ganesan, Product Lead, GD-IT, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Sriram Krishnamurthy, Director, GD-IT, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Modern computing and analytics platforms must deliver scalability to support diverse user communities, from regulatory submissions and patient safety in GxP environments to non-GxP use cases like exploratory analysis, all built on an adaptive, scalable infrastructure.This case study explores the journey of creating a validated, multi-lingual analytics ecosystem on a shared storage platform, leveraging insights from non-regulatory use cases. It highlights key architectural decisions, governance and validation strategies, and operational lessons, providing practical guidance for designing scalable, compliant analytics platforms in regulated environments.

10:55 am

The Prerequisites Nobody Tells You about—Making R&D Data Actually Reusable

Daria Shlyueva, PhD, Senior Scientist & Data & Digital Lead, Target Discovery, Novo Nordisk

Research organizations invest heavily in ELN and data infrastructure yet consistently struggle to make scientific data truly reusable. This talk draws on hands-on experience delivering production ELN systems and CRO data ingestion frameworks at a large pharma company to examine what separates implementations that get used from those that don't. The core insight: adoption is not a change management problem. It is whether the scientific workflow is repeatable enough to systematize, whether the data can be processed into something analytically usable, and whether anyone downstream actually needs it. A diagnostic framework for assessing all three—before committing resources.

11:25 am

Navigating the Data Landscape: The Cancer Research Data Commons Data Ecosystem

Durga Addepalli, PhD, Health Scientist, Center for Biomedical Informatics & IT, NIH NCI

NCI's Cancer Research Data Commons is a data ecosystem built to administer and manage the data generated by the various NCI funded programs for FAIR data sharing across the research community. NCI has been a pioneer in establishing a democratized ecosystem co-locating data and compute, building secure and scalable data commons and cloud analytical platforms for the diverse users from cancer community.

11:55 am

Is Your Lab in the Loop?

Bill Lynch, Life Sciences Strategic Alliances Manager, Healthcare, Pure Storage Inc.

Andrew Brown, PhD, Founder, Osmosys

Modern cryoEM and high-throughput instruments generate vast data sets, but mismatched infrastructure slows throughput, delays insights, and allows poor-quality data to persist. This session explores on-premises edge AI for real-time processing at the instrument, detecting anomalies early so only high-value data advances. We’ll show how analytics can trigger automated adjustments, improving performance, reducing costs, and accelerating time to insight.

12:25 pm

Architecting the Modern BioPharma Data Stack: Automating Governance and Compliance

Abhay Kini, Director, Life Sciences, Egnyte, Inc.

Catherine Hall, Head of GXP Quality Assurance, Security, Egnyte, Inc.

In this session, you'll learn how to:

Automate Governance at Scale: Deploy custom policy engines to automatically classify and protect sensitive IP and clinical datasets across a unified cloud-native platform
Architect Compliant Environments: Build validated environments for Statistical Computing featuring embedded version control, RBAC, and immutable audit trails for biostatistics teams
Accelerate GxP Validation: Streamline the path to a validated state, enabling secure collaboration for internal & external users and seamless terabyte-scale data integration from global CRO partners

12:55 pmTransition to Lunch

1:05 pm

LUNCHEON PRESENTATION: The AI Token Tax: Why Life Science AI Pipelines Waste 40–70% of Compute—and How to Eliminate It

David Cerf, Chief Data Evangelist, GRAU DATA

Genomics, cryo-EM, and imaging data are reprocessed hundreds of times, causing AI pipelines to re-parse the same files for every RAG, agent, or analytics workflow. This wastes 40–70% of GPU and token spend—the AI Token Tax. This session shows how a persistent metadata fabric cuts preprocessing 50–80%, improves data quality, and makes scientific data truly AI-ready.

1:35 pmRefreshment Break in the Exhibit Hall with Poster Viewing (Sponsorship Opportunity Available)

Bio-IT's hall is bigger than ever; one break won’t cut it! Enjoy dessert and coffee after lunch, explore booths and posters, vote for awards, and participate in our raffle for a chance to win a prize!

2:25 pm

Chairperson's Remarks

Rody Arantes, Director, Digital Technology, Montai Therapeutics

2:30 pm

Federated Data Systems to Turbocharge Collaboration

Ahmad Haider, PhD, Vice President, AI/ML & Data, Natera

In this session, we will discuss a federated data architecture and operating model to shift ownership of data to domain teams and treat datasets as discoverable, secure products—enabling data producers to publish well-documented, versioned data products, data consumers to self-serve high-quality assets for analytics and ML, and platform teams to provide the plumbing, tooling, and federated governance that makes it all scalable. By combining product thinking, domain ownership, an organization-wide data catalog, and platform-provided capabilities (cataloging, lineage, observability, automated quality checks, and data contracts), we have made pipelines resilient to sudden schema changes, elevated accountability for data quality, and removed the central-team bottleneck that traditionally limited access. The result: faster time-to-insight, more reliable data for data science and analytics, and a governed, interoperable ecosystem where standards and policy are enforced without stifling domain innovation, demonstrating how a pragmatic federated implementation can deliver both autonomy and enterprise-grade control.

3:00 pm

MATRIX: Scalable Compound Property Generation for Accelerating Bioinformatics Discovery

Rody Arantes, Director, Digital Technology, Montai Therapeutics

Thomas George Thomas, Senior Data Engineer, Platform Engineering, Montai Therapeutics

MATRIX (Montai AtTRIbute eXpander) system is a cloud-native platform for large-scale molecular property generation with full data traceability. It produces 50+ attributes for 500M compounds in under two hours, addressing throughput and reproducibility challenges in biotech R&D while enabling faster, more reliable discovery workflows.This scalable, reproducible workflow modernizes cheminformatics and provides a blueprint for rapid, traceable, research-grade bioinformatics discovery.

3:30 pm

From Data Silos to Data Facilities: Building Platforms That Make Research Data Findable, Ready, and Reusable

Fernanda Foertter, MSc, Executive Director, The University of Alabama High Performance Computing and Data Center

As demand for analytics and AI accelerates, many organizations face a hidden bottleneck: they don’t know what data they have, where it lives, or how quickly it can be made usable. While FAIR principles define what good data should look like, they don’t solve the operational challenge of discovering, curating, and serving real-world datasets across fragmented storage environments. This session explores the emerging concept of a data facility—an evolution beyond file systems, catalogs, or data lakes. Examine how organizations can architect platforms that actively surface valuable datasets, connect distributed storage, apply readiness workflows, and deliver data that is truly “compute-ready” for downstream research. Attendees will learn practical approaches for automating data discovery, reducing reliance on human intermediaries, and building infrastructure that turns legacy and siloed data into reusable research assets.

4:00 pm

Onya Portal: A Secure, AI-Augmented Ecosystem for Rare Disease Data Integration and Drug Discovery

Lauren Chaby, PhD, Executive Director, Project 8p Foundation

The Onya Portal transforms rare disease data into high-resolution, system-level insights by integrating clinical, genetic, and omics datasets across patient populations. With built-in AI tools and pathway mapping, it enables cross-disease discovery, supports early drug target identification, and offers secure, consented data access for researchers. This session introduces how Onya empowers precision medicine at scale—particularly in ultra-rare conditions—without compromising patient privacy

4:30 pmBest of Show Awards Reception in the Exhibit Hall with Poster Viewing

Unwind with colleagues at our lively reception! Explore posters, vote for the best, network with exhibitors, enjoy a drink, and try to win a raffle prize. Celebrate Best of Show winners!

5:45 pmClose of Day

Thursday, May 21

7:00 amRegistration Open

7:00 amConnect & Collaborate: Breakfast Networking Roundtables (Sponsorship Opportunities Available)

Start the day with small-group roundtable discussions designed to spark collaboration and exchange insights across the Bio-IT community. Attendees join themed tables—spanning AI, data ecosystems, foundational models, and more—for focused, peer-driven discussions that foster problem-solving, connection, and cross-functional perspectives ahead of the plenary keynote.

IN-PERSON ONLY –

TABLE 1: Knowledge Graphs

Tom Plasterer, PhD, CEO & Co-Founder, Knowledge3

How are knowledge graphs supporting reliable scientific intelligence
Lessons from early deployments
Remaining challenges and barriers to scale

IN-PERSON ONLY –

TABLE 2: From Molecules to Qubits: A Collaborative Conversation on Pharma’s Quantum Future

Christopher Bishop, Chief Reinvention Officer, Improvising Careers

Learn how leading global pharma companies are applying quantum principles to real-world research.
Discover the quantum companies transforming traditional processes around drug development and drug discovery.
Discuss how quantum, along with HPC and AI, is poised to help researchers tackle historically intractable problems and potentially find new treatments for diseases like cancer, Alzheimer’s, and diabetes.

IN-PERSON ONLY –

TABLE 3: From AI Tools to Autonomous Discovery: Are We Ready for Agentic AI in Drug Discovery?

Parthiban Srinivasan, PhD, Professor and Director, Centre for AI in Medicine, Vinayaka Mission's Research Foundation, India

Where are we today? Are AI tools truly integrated into workflows, or still operating in silos?
What changes with agents? How do LLM-based agents shift drug discovery from prediction to decision-making?
What is blocking autonomy? Data quality, validation, trust, or organizational readiness for AI-driven discovery?

IN-PERSON ONLY –

TABLE 4: Bridging Tech Transfer and Industry: Unlocking Real Collaboration at Bio-IT

Nancy Wetherbee, Director Commercialization, Research Innovation Center, Northeastern University

Where are the highest-value collaboration opportunities between academia/TTOs and industry (biopharma, startups, AI/data, investors), and what makes them actually work?
What types of partnerships are most effective in practice (licensing, co-development, startup creation, sponsored research), and how do both sides evaluate quality and fit quickly?
What specific formats, access points, or structures at the Bio-IT event would actually drive follow-up, partnerships, and deal-making?

IN-PERSON ONLY –

TABLE 5: Supporting Innovation While Managing Risk: The CIO’s Dilemma in AI-Driven R&D

Chris Dwan, Fractional CIO, Triveni Bio

How do CIOs enable rapid AI and data innovation without breaking governance, compliance, or data integrity frameworks?
What separates pilot-stage innovation from scalable, production-grade systems? Where do most organizations fail?
How do leaders manage emerging risks (model bias, data provenance, regulatory exposure) while still pushing competitive advantage?

IN-PERSON ONLY –

TABLE 6: Real-World Data and Evidence: Unlocking Value Beyond Clinical Trials

Michael Liebman, PhD, Managing Director, IPQ Analytics, LLC

How real-world data is being used alongside clinical and experimental data
Challenges in standardization, access, and regulatory acceptance
Opportunities to improve outcomes, access, and long-term patient insights

IN-PERSON ONLY –

TABLE 7: Beyond Data Management: Why AI Fails without Institutional Memory in Life Sciences

Alexandra Brocato, CEO & Co-Founder, Beakr, Inc.

Why critical experimental knowledge is lost across ELNs, LIMS, and siloed teams, and the cost of reinventing work
How structured experimental memory makes past decisions, failures, and context reusable across teams
How organizations can make scientific knowledge reusable for both humans and AI

IN-PERSON ONLY –

TABLE 8: Intellectual Property in Biotech: Strategy, Patents, and Trademarks

Elizabeth F. Jackson, Acting Director, Northeast Regional Outreach Office, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

How to think strategically about IP early in biotech and AI-driven research
Common pitfalls in patent and trademark applications and how to avoid them
Navigating ownership, protection, and commercialization of innovations

IN-PERSON ONLY –

TABLE 9: Are Bioinformatics Workflows Broken? Rethinking Pipelines in the Age of No-Code and AI

Daniel Clarke, Biomedical Software Developer, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Why do current workflow systems fail most scientists in practice?
Can no-code and AI-driven workflows meet standards for reproducibility, validation, and clinical readiness?
What would a “production-ready” workflow ecosystem actually look like across teams and organizations?

IN-PERSON ONLY –

TABLE 10: Data Readiness for AI: Why Most AI Programs Fail Before They Start

Bahador Marzban, PhD, Principal Data Scientist, Innovative Medicine R&D, Johnson & Johnson

The gap between AI ambition and the reality of data foundations, platforms, and operating models
What “AI‑ready data” actually means in practice—beyond pilots, dashboards, and proofs of concept
Where AI initiatives most often break down: data integration, data quality, metadata, and governance at scale

8:00 am

Grab Your Seat! 25th Annual Golden Ticket Prize Giveaway & Organizer’s Remarks*

Cindy Crowninshield, Executive Event Director, Cambridge Healthtech Institute

*Must be present to win.

8:05 am

Bio-IT World 2026 Innovative Practices Awards Ceremony (Winners Announced)

Allison Proffitt, Editorial Director, Bio-IT World and Clinical Research News

Since 2003, Bio-IT World’s Innovative Practices Awards have recognized outstanding technology innovation advancing life sciences research. The 2026 winners highlight excellence in open science, patient advocacy, global data access, and real-world AI through collaborations involving Arizona State University and Starfish Storage, CareDx, ASAP Discovery Consortium, and Novartis with Genedata AG. Together, these projects illustrate the modern R&D data lifecycle, from unlocking legacy data to enabling collaboration and driving clinical decision-making.

8:25 am

Bio-IT World 2026 Emerging Innovator Award—NEW (Winner Announced)

Allison Proffitt, Editorial Director, Bio-IT World and Clinical Research News

The Emerging Innovator Award recognizes one exceptional early-career researcher advancing the future of life sciences through breakthrough work in biomedical data, computational methods, or technology-enabled discovery. The 2026 awardee will deliver a 20-minute plenary keynote at Bio-IT World, highlighting the impact of their research and the forward-looking direction of their work.

8:35 am

EMERGING INNOVATOR AWARD PRESENTATION: Scalable Connectomics for AI-Ready Brain Data

Ons M'Saad, PhD, Co-Founder & CEO, panluminate Inc.

Mapping the brain at synaptic resolution—connectomics—could transform neuroscience, medicine, and AI. Until now, the field has depended on electron microscopy: slow, expensive, difficult to scale, and limited to structure alone. Dr. Ons M’Saad presents a new optical approach that adds molecular context to large-scale brain maps, opening new ways to study neurodegenerative disease and inform more biologically grounded AI.

8:55 am PLENARY KEYNOTE INTRODUCTION:

Trusted Data, Accelerated Science: Building a Context-First Data Foundation for AI in BioPharma

Scott Weiss, Vice President, Product & Strategy, IDBS

As AI reshapes BioPharma R&D, the biggest barrier isn’t the model—it’s the data. Experimental and process data remains fragmented across spreadsheets and siloed systems, often stripped of scientific context. In this introduction, Scott Weiss, VP Product & Strategy at IDBS, argues that a context-first data foundation is essential to AI success, showing how unified, traceable lab data becomes AI-ready, GxP-compliant, and accelerates confident decision-making.

9:05 am PLENARY KEYNOTE PRESENTATION:

Generative AI across Drug Discovery Tasks

Jeremy L. Jenkins, PhD, US Head, Discovery Sciences, Novartis BioMedical Research

Many steps in drug discovery are informed by large-scale biological and chemical data, from genomics to the chemical universe, to phenotypic cell profiling. Generative-ML models are increasingly being deployed across these domains, including single-cell foundation models for target discovery, generative chemistry for rapid ligand design, and transfer learning to accelerate image analysis. Practical applications of generative AI in early drug discovery will be described, including simulated functional-genomics screens with in silico perturbations; compound design conditioned on protein pockets; and in silico-labeling approaches that replace traditional image staining. Together, these advances illustrate how generative AI is transforming how drug discovery research is conducted.

9:45 amCoffee Break in the Exhibit Hall with Poster Competition Winners Announced (Sponsorship Opportunity Available)

Bio-IT is all about connections! Explore booths, award-winning posters, and network with clients, colleagues, and exhibitors. Grab coffee, build relationships, and stay for a chance to win a raffle prize!

10:30 am

Organizer's Remarks

Kaitlyn Barago, Director, Production Operations and Communications, Cambridge Healthtech Institute

10:35 am

Chairperson's Remarks

Adam Kraut, Director, Research Informatics and Data Architecture, Metaphore Bio

10:40 am

Function-First Generative Drug Design Platform Unlocking Functional Biologics

Adam Kraut, Director, Research Informatics and Data Architecture, Metaphore Bio

Metaphore Bio is building a function-first generative drug-design platform where data infrastructure is a first-class product. Cloud-orchestrated autonomous labs stream high-throughput functional and multiomic data into a governed cloud platform that powers AI/ML and protein design at scale. I will share how our storage and compute architecture balances speed, performance, cost, and compliance while accelerating functional biologics.

11:10 am

Digital Platform for Data-Driven, AI-Enabled Biotherapeutics Discovery

Yuhao Lin, Advisor, Biotechnology Digital Transformation, Eli Lilly & Company

Lilly is developing an integrated digital platform to transform large molecule discovery in the age of AI. From assay data capture and NGS workflows to MLOps and DMTA, the solutions in this platform are unified in both data and UI by design. This talk will highlight the roadmap, progress, impact, challenges, and learnings from this transformational platform.

11:40 am

Structure Designer: AbbVie's Internal Compound Design Platform

Elyse Geoffroy, Technology Engineer, Information Research, AbbVie, Inc.

Structure Designer is an internally built, customizable application for AbbVie's Discovery medicinal chemists, centralizing compound design workflows and data access, and replacing fragmented, vendor-dependent solutions with a flexible, web-based platform. Its modern architecture integrates rapid calculations, seamless session management, and secure user controls, significantly improving speed, usability, and accessibility for both internal staff and external collaborators, all at a lower cost than commercial alternatives.

12:10 pm

Enabling CMC Digital Transformation from Digitalized Lab Workflows to Data Products

Mohan Boggara, PhD, Digital Transformation Leader, CMC Process Development & Data Sciences, Sanofi

CMC Process Development is facing multiple challenges from the increasing number of projects, need for agility, cost reductions, data integrity & accelerated development timelines. Data generated during drug development is only partially leveraged to further improve our processes or use it for predictive modeling. As part of global CMC Digital Transformation program (iCMC DT) we are focusing on digitalizing End-to-End dataflows based on lab workflows across multiple modalities, platforms & organizational units. To do this, we have pivoted to a Business-led Product Team Model with five focus areas. With this model, we have been able to scale much broadly (sites, orgs, platforms) and higher volume of workflows (increased number of value-driven digital workflows).  This unique and ambitious program spanning over 3000+ users, 10+ countries, and 15+ sites has already resulted in a lot of structured (AI-ready) data with tremendous potential to turn CMC into an AI-powered organization. We will share the updates and the roadmap ahead, and how this has set us up with a strong foundation to build data products enabling advanced analytics, including process modeling, machine learning, and AI.

12:40 pm

Accelerating Science with AI Data Lessons from Large-Scale Deployments

Morris Skupinsky, Field CTO, Higher Education, DDN

Modern research instruments now generate data faster than most organizations can manage. This session shares lessons from large-scale AI-era science deployments across pharma, multi-institute research, and BioNeMo-based drug discovery. Learn what intelligent storage means in practice, how teams cut analysis from weeks to days, retained 100× more raw data, and moved from pilot to production. Practitioner Q&A encouraged.

1:10 pmSession Break and Transition to Lunch

1:20 pmEnjoy Lunch on Your Own

1:50 pmRefreshment Break in the Exhibit Hall with Poster Viewing (Sponsorship Opportunity Available)

Feeling tired? Recharge during the final Networking Exhibit Hall break! Visit booths, explore posters, connect with peers, and turn in your Game Cards for a chance to win a raffle prize.

2:30 pm

Chairperson's Remarks

Cindy Crowninshield, Executive Event Director, Cambridge Healthtech Institute

For 20 years, Trends from the Trenches has been Bio-IT World’s unscripted pulse check, offering candid, insider perspectives on what works, what fails, and what’s pure hype in scientific computing. As the field evolved, the session broadened to reflect the real operational challenges and breakthroughs shaping R&D. For 2026, the format evolves again: a focused, credibility-driven keynote paired with a community-powered unconference built from attendee input. The result is a forum for late-breaking insights, grounded realities, forward-looking perspectives, and practical solutions you won’t find in vendor decks, marketing summaries, or any LLM. It leaves participants energized by the collective intelligence in the room and inspired by the emerging possibilities shaping the future of life-science computing.

2:35 pm

From 20 Years of Trends to the Next Era of Digital R&D

Cindy Crowninshield, Executive Event Director, Cambridge Healthtech Institute

This presentation frames the industry’s next chapter by tracing how Trends from the Trenches has shaped digital R&D for two decades and by spotlighting the forces redefining scientific computing today: AI–HPC convergence, modality-driven compute, multimodal data, and rising expectations for speed, interoperability, and trust. Remarks set the foundation for a forward-looking exploration of where digital biology and computational innovation are heading next.

2:45 pm

Remarks & Introduction

Chris Dagdigian, Co-Founder and Senior Director, The BioTeam, Inc.; Founder, Trends from the Trenches

2:55 pm

FEATURED TALK: The Hard Truth about Digital R&D: Patterns, Pitfalls, and the Next Wave of Innovation

Eleanor A. Howe, PhD, Founder & CEO, Diamond Age Data Science

This presentation delivers a candid, comprehensive assessment of the forces reshaping scientific computing and digital R&D. Eleanor examines the technologies, platforms, modalities, and market dynamics that are truly driving change—highlighting what’s working, what’s stalling, and what’s losing relevance. She synthesizes emerging patterns across AI, data platforms, workflow orchestration, multimodal analytics, and new therapeutic and diagnostic directions, while calling out persistent bottlenecks and architectural missteps slowing progress. The result is a grounded, evidence-based view of where the field is heading and which strategies will matter most in the next cycle of innovation.

3:40 pm

Community Unconference: Live Problems, Live Solutions

Allison Proffitt, Editorial Director, Bio-IT World and Clinical Research News

This session features a structured, participatory unconference built around topics sourced from Bio-IT event attendees during the conference week. A working group synthesizes all submissions Wednesday evening into a small set of high-value discussion themes. The facilitator guides the room through rapid-fire exchanges, micro-debates, and collaborative problem-solving focused on operational realities in AI, computing, data engineering, and scientific software. The goal is to surface patterns, stress-test ideas, and extract practical solutions emerging across the community—creating an annual, crowd-generated state-of-the-field snapshot that only this session can produce.

4:05 pmClose of Conference