Current Lecture Season

All lectures will be in person in Lipsett Amphitheater, Building 10, from 2:00 to 3:00 p.m. ET (new time) with remote viewing at https://videocast.nih.gov.

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WALS 2025-2026 WALS Season season poster

A Retrotransposon in Cancer: The Marker and the Mutator

Kathleen H. Burns, M.D., Ph.D.
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute: Harvard Medical School

Dr. Burns received her M.D. and Ph.D. in Molecular and Human Genetics from Baylor College of Medicine. She completed a clinical pathology (CP) residency and hematopathology fellowship at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and served as chief resident. Thereafter, Dr. Burns joined the faculty at Johns Hopkins and progressed through the academic ranks to Professor. She served as Vice Chair for Research and Programs in the Pathology Department and Director of the school-wide Physician Scientist Training Program (PSTP).

Hiding in Plain Sight: The Opportunity to Dramatically Reduce Cigarette Smoking and Chronic Disease in America

Andrew Hyland, PhD
Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center

Dr. Andrew Hyland has more than 25 years of experience doing tobacco control research. He has conducted numerous funded clinical and population-based studies, published more than 300 papers, and is widely recognized nationally and internationally for his expertise, including advisory roles for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Cancer Institute and the International Agency for Research on Cancer.

The TGFb superfamily – How understanding mechanism leads to therapeutic opportunities

Tom B Thompson , PhD
University of Cincinnati College of Medicine

The focus of my laboratory is divided into two areas of investigation where I study the structural and functional aspects of TGFbeta family signaling and regulation along with the structures of apolipoproteins and how this relates to HDL particles and other related biological functions. The laboratory uses a combination of structural techniques including X-ray crstallography, small angle X-ray scattering coupled with biophysical and biochemical experiments.

A Patient-Scientist Lens on How and Why to Move Faster to First in Human

Sonia Vallabh, Ph.D.
Broad Institute

Sonia Vallabh co-leads the initiative to develop preventive drugs for prion disease at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. She comes to this work with a personal mission. In 2010, Vallabh watched her 52-year-old mother die of a rapid, mysterious, undiagnosed dementia. One year later, Vallabh learned that her mother’s disease had been genetic prion disease, and that she herself was at risk. Vallabh underwent predictive genetic testing and learned that she had inherited the causal mutation, placing her at very high risk of developing the same disease.

Genetic mechanisms controlling developmental timing in C. elegans

Victor Ambros, PhD
UMass Chan Medical School

Victor Ambros earned his undergraduate degree in 1975, his doctorate in 1979 and completed his postdoctoral fellowship in 1983, all at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. During graduate school, he worked with David Baltimore, PhD, a co-recipient of the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries related to the interaction between tumor viruses and genetic material of the cell. In Dr. Baltimore’s lab, Ambros studied the poliovirus genome structure and replication. Ambros then conducted his postdoctoral research in the lab of H.

Neonatal Genomic Sequencing: The Past, The Present, and the Unchartered, Controversial Future

Jill L. Maron, MD, MPH
Brown University

In June of 2021, Care New England announced the appointment of Jill L. Maron, MD, MPH, to Chief of Pediatrics at Women & Infants Hospital. We enthusiastically welcomed Dr. Maron into our Department of Pediatrics on October 1, 2021. She serves as the Oh-Zopfi Endowed Chair of Pediatrics at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University.

Previously, Dr. Maron served as the Vice Chair of Pediatric Research and Executive Director of the Mother Infant Research Institute (MIRI) at Tufts Children’s Hospital.

The Emotional Brain: Role in Depression and Addiction

Huda Akil, Ph.D.
Michigan Neuroscience Institute; University of Michigan

Huda Akil is a neuroscientist whose research has contributed to the understanding of the neurobiology of emotions, including pain, anxiety, depression, and substance abuse. Akil and her colleagues are best known for providing the first physiological evidence for a role of endorphins in the brain and demonstrating that endorphins are activated by stress and can cause pain inhibition. Akil is a Gardner C. Quarton Distinguished Professor of Neurosciences in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Michigan Medical School.

A cure for hepatitis C: Now what?

Charles M. Rice, Ph.D.
The Rockefeller University

Rolla E. Dyer Lecture

Dr. Rice is the Maurice R. and Corinne P. Greenberg Chair in Virology and serves as Head of the Laboratory for Virology and Infectious Disease at The Rockefeller University. He is one of the world’s most accomplished virologists and a prominent figure in research on members of the Flaviviridae including hepatitis C virus (HCV).

Puzzles, Paradoxes, and Paradigms

Elena Fuentes-Afflick, MD, MPH
Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC)

As chief scientific officer, Elena Fuentes-Afflick, MD, MPH, leads AAMC programs that support medical research and the training of physician-scientists and researchers in academic medicine. In this role, she provides leadership and vision for addressing research and science policy and other related critical issues facing academic medicine, medical schools and academic health systems.

Design of New Protein Functions Using Deep Learning

David Baker, PhD
Institute for Protein Design

David Baker is a Nobel laureate, professor of biochemistry, HHMI investigator, and director of the Institute for Protein Design at the University of Washington. His lab develops software for protein design and uses it to create molecules that address challenges in medicine, technology, and sustainability. Recent work includes the development of machine learning methods for generating functional proteins. 

This page was last updated on Wednesday, August 27, 2025