NERLSCD 2026 Program
The 2026 Program is currently under development. Please check back regularly for updates.
Additional Resources
- Please check back nearer the meeting for important documents such as:
- Know Before you go
- Program at a glance
- Full program
- Session Abstracts
- Vendor map
- Hotel layout
Wednesday 14 October, 2026
| Time | Session Type | Session Title | Speaker | Sponsor | Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12:00-17:30 | Registration | Registration is Open! | Fireside at Rubin Center | ||
| 12:00-17:00 | NERLSCD 2026 | Platinum | Sponsor | Workshops | |
| 13:15-14:45 | Qiagen Pre-Meeting Workshop | Try something New from QIAGEN! Whet your appetite with some taste testing of appetizers, drinks (alcoholic & non-alcoholic) | Samuel J. Rulli | Qiagen Pre-Meeting Workshop | Innovation Studio 203 |
| 13:15-14:45 | New England Biolabs Pre-Meeting Workshop | Partnering for Core Lab Success: NEBNext Solutions and the NEBNext Alliance Program | Siva Chavadi | New England Biolabs Pre-Meeting Workshop | Innovation Studio 205 |
| 15:00-16:30 | Illumina Pre-Meeting Workshop | Illumina Pre-Meeting Workshop at NERLSCD | TBD | Illumina More Info & Register | Innovation Studio 203 |
| 15:00-16:30 | Waters Pre-Meeting Workshop | Waters Biosciences (formerly BD Biosciences) PreMeeting/Workshop | TBD | Waters Pre-Meeting Workshop | Innovation Studio 205 |
| 15:00-17:00 | Northeast Core Admin (NE-CAN) meeting | TBD | |||
| 18:00-20:30 | Opening Reception | Worcester Art Museum | Worcester Art Museum | ||
| 21:00 | NERLSCD Afterdark | After Hours Networking | TBD | TBD |
Thursday 15 October, 2026
| Time | Session Type | Session Title | Speaker | Sponsor | Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 06:30-07:30 | Walking Groups | Marriott Lobby | |||
| 08:00-18:00 | Registration | Fireside at Rubin Center | |||
| 08:00-09:00 | Breakfast | ||||
| 09:00-09:15 | Opening remarks | Bogdan Vernescu, Vice President & Vice Provost for Research & Innovation, WPI | |||
| 09:15-10:05 | Keynote Address 1 | Massachusetts Biomedical Innovation Hub | Eric Young, Associate Professor, Chemical Engineering, WPI | ||
| 10:05-10:15 | Platinum Sponsor Talk | Qiagen | Qiagen | ||
| 10:15-10:30 | Break | ||||
| Concurrent | Breakout | Sessions | |||
| 10:30-11:30 | Breakout | Building a Collaborative Partnership with a Core: Perspectives from Metabolomics & Mass Spec Cores | Caroline Chidley – UMASS Chan Drew Jones – NYU Langone Xiaoyang Su – Rutgers | ||
| 10:30-11:30 | Breakout | Every Cell Is Sacred: Single Cell for Precious Samples. | Stuart Levine, MIT | 10X Genomics | |
| 10:30-11:30 | Breakout | Applications of AI in Core Facility Administration | Ermal Toto – WPI Mike Busa – UMASS Amherst Kelley Thomas – UNH | ||
| 10:30-11:30 | Breakout | Seeing is Believing: Inside the Structural Biology Toolkit | Scott McCallum: NMR, RPI Chen Xu: CryoEM, UMass Med School Daniel: Crystallography, MIT | Opentrons | |
| 11:45-13:00 | Lunch | ||||
| Concurrent | Breakout | Sessions | |||
| 13:00-14:00 | Core Tour | Fire Protection Engineering | Gateway Park – Life Sciences Building | ||
| 13:00-14:00 | Core Tour | BETC/CERES Facilities | Gateway Park – Life Sciences Building | ||
| 13:00-14:00 | Core Tour | Photonics | Gateway Park – Life Sciences Building | ||
| Core Tour | PracticePoint | ||||
| Core Tour | Metal Processing & Materials Characterization | ||||
| 13:00-14:00 | Breakout | Food Tech Panel | Matt McNulty, Associate Director – Tufts University Center for Cellular Agriculture | ||
| 13:00-14:00 | Breakout | 101 Sessions – Flow Cytometry | |||
| 13:00-14:00 | Breakout | 101 Sessions – Electron Microscopy | |||
| 13:00-14:00 | Breakout | 101 Sessions – Bioinformatics | Alper Kucukural, UMASS Chan | ||
| 14:30 | Keynote Address 2 | Cores in Pediatric AIDS research | Katherine Luzuriaga, UMASS Chan Medical School | ||
| 15:30 | Platinum Sponsor Talk | NEB | NEB | ||
| 15:40-16:00 | Break | ||||
| 16:00 | Breakout | How Imaging Core Staff Can Guide Users Toward Better Experimental Design and Data | Heather Brown-Harding, Brandeis University Beth Cinimi, Broad Institute Paula Montero Llopis, Harvard Medical School | ||
| Breakout | Bioinformatics/Spatial | Elizabeth Pritchett | |||
| Breakout | From Positions to Interests: Negotiation Fundamentals That Change the Game | Tim Bushnell | |||
| Breakout | Challenges and successes with sample processing workflows in Long Read Sequencing | Kelley Thomas, UNH Bruce Kingham, UDelaware Scott Tighe, UVM | Takara | ||
| 17:30-19:00 | Poster Session & Vendor Show | ||||
| 19:00 | Dinner on your own | ||||
| 21:30 | NERLSCD Afterdark | Gather afterhours |
Friday 16 October, 2026
| Time | Session | Title | Speaker | Sponsor | Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 06:30-07:30 | Walking Groups | ||||
| 08:00-12:00 | Registration | Grand Ballroom Lobby | |||
| 08:00-9:00 | Breakfast | ||||
| 09:00-10:00 | Keynote Address 3 | State Funding of Research Infrastructure | Audrey Byrne – Mass Life Science Center | ||
| 10:00-10:15 | Platinum Sponsor Keynote | Waters | Waters | ||
| 10:15-10:30 | Morning Break & Networking | ||||
| Concurrent Breakout Sessions | |||||
| 10:30-11:45 | Breakout | Incubators as Launchpads: Supporting Startup Success | MaryAnn Picard, – UMASS Lowell Nate Hafer- UMASS Chan Zu Shen – Mass Biomedical Initiatives (MBI) Ariella Trotsenko – CUNY Industrial and Applied Research | ||
| 10:30-11:45 | Breakout | Spatial Proteomics/Metabolomics | Ioannis Vlachos – Beth Isreal Deaconess Medical Center | ||
| 10:30-11:45 | Breakout | Imaging Flow: From the Bench to the Bay | Tim Bushnell | ||
| 10:30-11:45 | Breakout | Bridging the Gap: Materials Science Meets Biology | Susan Sharfstein Professor of Nanoscale Science & Engineering, Mike Skvarla , Cornell Nanoscale Science and Technology Facility | ||
| 11:45-13:00 | Lunch Break | ||||
| 12:15 | Platinum Sponsor Keynote | Illumina | Illumina | ||
| 12:25 | Keynote | Research Infrastructure as an intervention for emerging fields, A case study in the food economy | Matt McNulty, Associate Director – Tufts University Center for Cellular Agriculture | ||
| 13:15 | Volkert Award | ||||
| 13:30 | Closing Remarks | ||||
| See you next year in Rochester! | NERLSCD 2027: | Rochester | |||