NERLSCD 2026 Program
The 2026 Program is available below
Additional Resources
Wednesday 14 October, 2026
| Time | Session Type | Session Title | Speaker | Sponsor | Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12:00-17:30 | Registration | Registration is Open! | Fireside at Rubin Center | ||
| NERLSCD 2026 | Keystone | 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 More Info & Register | 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 More Info & Register | 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 | Open conversation. Bring your topics & meet fellow administrators | Innovation Studio, I&E Room, 2nd Floor | ||
| 18:00-20:30 | Opening Reception | Worcester Art Museum | Worcester Art Museum | ||
| 21:00 | NERLSCD Afterdark | After Hours Networking |
Thursday 15 October, 2026
| Time | Session Type | Session Title | Speaker | Sponsor | Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 06:30-07:30 | Walking Groups | Morning Walking Groups | Marriott Lobby | ||
| 08:00-18:00 | Registration | Fireside at Rubin Center | |||
| 08:00-09:00 | Breakfast | Rubin Campus Center 3rd Floor | |||
| 08:50-09:00 | Orientation | Meeting Overview & Logistics | Susanna Perkins, WPI | Odeum B&C | |
| 09:00-09:15 | Opening remarks | Welcome | Andrew Sears, Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs & Provost, WPI | Odeum B&C | |
| 09:15-10:05 | Keynote Address 1 | Massachusetts Biomedical Innovation Hub | Eric Young, Associate Professor, Chemical Engineering, WPI | Odeum B&C | |
| 10:05-10:15 | Platinum Sponsor Talk | Qiagen | Qiagen | Odeum B&C | |
| 10:15-10:30 | Break | Rubin Campus Center 3rd Floor | |||
| Concurrent | Breakout | Sessions | |||
| 10:30-11:30 | Breakout | Building a Collaborative Partnership with a Core: Perspectives from Metabolomics & Mass Spec Cores | Chair: Caroline Chidley – UMASS Chan Drew Jones – NYU Langone Xiaoyang Su – Rutgers | Innovation Studio 203 | |
| 10:30-11:30 | Breakout | Every Cell Is Sacred: Single Cell for Precious Samples | Stuart Levine, MIT Mandovi Chatterjee, HMS Diane Luo, Jackson Labs Mei Zhang, CHOP | 10X Genomics | Innovation Studio, I&E Room, 2nd floor |
| 10:30-11:30 | Breakout | Applications of AI in Core Facility Administration | Ermal Toto – WPI Mike Busa – UMASS Amherst Kelley Thomas – UNH | Innovation Studio 205 | |
| 10:30-11:30 | Breakout | Seeing is Believing: Inside the Structural Biology Toolkit | Chair: Marimar Lopez, RPI Panelists: Scott McCallum: NMR, RPI Chen Xu: CryoEM, UMass Med School Daniel Chan-Chin Lim: Crystallography, MIT | Opentrons | Innovation Studio 105 |
| 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 | Washburn Shops – On campus | |||
| 13:00-14:00 | 101 Session | Flow Cytometry | Dan Mielcarz – Dartmouth | Odeum B&C | |
| 13:00-14:00 | 101 Session | Electron Microscopy | Ben Myers – Yale | Odeum B&C | |
| 13:00-14:00 | 101 Session | AI-Assisted Bioinformatics: Responsible, Reproducible, and Practical | Alper Kucukural – UMASS Chan | Odeum B&C | |
| 14:30 | Keynote Address 2 | Importance of Cores to Clinical and Translational Research | Katherine Luzuriaga, UMASS Chan Medical School | Odeum B&C | |
| 15:30 | Platinum Sponsor Talk | NEB | NEB | Odeum B&C | |
| 15:40-16:00 | Break | Rubin Campus Center 3rd Floor | |||
| 16:00 | Breakout | How Imaging Core Staff Can Guide Users Toward Better Experimental Design and Data | Heather Brown-Harding, Brandeis University Beth Cimini, Broad Institute Paula Montero Llopis, Harvard Medical School | Innovation Studio, I&E Room, 2nd floor | |
| Breakout | Spatial Transcriptomics Across Model and Non-Model Systems: From Bench to Bioinformatics | Elizabeth Pritchett, Univ of Rochester) Hannah Aichelman, Univ of Rochester Maria Valadez Ingersoll, Woods Hole Oceanographic Inst Michal Lipinski, Broad Inst | IDT | Innovation Studio 203 | |
| Breakout | From Positions to Interests: Negotiation Fundamentals That Change the Game | Tim Bushnell | Innovation Studio 105 | ||
| Breakout | Challenges and successes with sample processing workflows in Long Read Sequencing | Kelley Thomas, UNH Bruce Kingham, UDelaware Scott Tighe, UVM | Takara | Innovation Studio 205 | |
| 17:30-19:00 | Vendor Show | Network & meet with the vendors | Rubin Campus Center 3rd Floor | ||
| 19:00 | Dinner on your own | ||||
| 21:30 | NERLSCD Afterdark | Gather afterhours to continue networking | Courtyard by Marriott |
Friday 16 October, 2026
| Time | Session | Title | Speaker | Sponsor | Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 06:30-07:30 | Walking Groups | Marriott Lobby | |||
| 08:00-12:00 | Registration | Fireside at Rubin Center | |||
| 08:00-9:00 | Breakfast | Rubin Campus Center, 3rd floor | |||
| 09:00-10:00 | Keynote Address 3 | State Funding of Research Infrastructure | Audrey Byrne – Mass Life Science Center | Odeum B&C | |
| 10:00-10:15 | Platinum Sponsor Keynote | Waters | Waters | Odeum B&C | |
| 10:15-10:30 | Morning Break & Networking | ||||
| Concurrent Breakout Sessions | |||||
| 10:30-11:45 | Breakout | Incubators as Launchpads: Supporting Startup Success | Chair: MaryAnn Picard, – UMASS Lowell Panelists: Nate Hafer- UMASS Chan Zu Shen – Mass Biomedical Initiatives (MBI) Ariella Trotsenko – CUNY Industrial and Applied Research | Innovation Studio 203 | |
| 10:30-11:45 | Breakout | Spatial Tissue Profiling: New Frontiers and New Capabilities | Ioannis Vlachos – Beth Isreal Deaconess Medical Center Bill Flynn – Jackson Laboratory Lindsey Erion Barner – The Broad Institute Stuart Levine – MIT | Innovation Studio 205 | |
| 10:30-11:45 | Breakout | Imaging Flow: From the Bench to the Bay | Chair: Tim Bushnell, RPI Panelists: Wojtek Wojciechowski, URMC Jason McCormick, Cornell Tom Fougere, McLane Labs | Innovation Studio 105 | |
| 10:30-11:45 | Breakout | Bridging the Gap: Materials Science Meets Biology | Chair: Marimar Lopez, RPI Panelists: Susan Sharfstein Professor of Nanoscale Science & Engineering Mike Skvarla , Cornell Nanoscale Science and Technology Facility Gohmyeong Bae U Mass Amherst Cleanroom Director | Innovation Studio, I&E Room, 2nd Floor | |
| 11:45-13:00 | Lunch Break | ||||
| 12:15 | Platinum Sponsor Keynote | Illumina | Illumina | Odeum B&C | |
| 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 | Odeum B&C | |
| 13:15 | Tom Volkert Memorial Mentorship Award | Dan Mielcarz, Ph.D., NERLSCD President | Odeum B&C | ||
| 13:30 | Closing Remarks | Dan Mielcarz, Ph.D., NERLSCD President | Odeum B&C | ||
| See you next year in Rochester for NERLSCD 2027! | |||||