2026 VAI Epigenetics Symposium

Alejandro Aguilera obtained a bachelor’s degree in biology (2015) at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, performing his thesis research focusing on transdifferentiation of human mesenchymal stem cells into neurons. After, he moved to Israel where he obtained his M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees at the Weizmann Institute of Science, working in the laboratory of Prof. Jacob Hanna. Since March 2024, Alejandro has established his own lab at HHMI Janelia Research Campus, USA, where he has been focusing on engineering new systems for ex utero culture of natural and “synthetic” mouse embryos, harnessing these platforms for investigating the mechanisms regulating early mouse embryogenesis.

Dr. Ramalho-Santos was born in New Haven, CT, in 1972 and went back to Portugal with his family when he was four months old. He grew up in Coimbra, Portugal. He received a B.S. in Biology and a Master’s in Cell Biology at the University of Coimbra, where he worked on the biochemistry of plant proteases under the supervision of Carlos Faro. He moved to the U.S. in 1997 for a Ph.D. in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology of Harvard University, where he was co-advised by Doug Melton and Andy McMahon. In his doctoral studies, he did pioneering work in stem cell transcriptomics and cell signaling in mouse development. In 2003, he moved to San Francisco to become a UCSF Faculty Fellow, an independent research position designed as an alternative to a traditional postdoc. In 2007, he became an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Ob/Gyn and Pathology at UCSF, and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2013. He is the recipient of a 2008 NIH New Innovator Award and a 2016 Royan International Research Award in Reproductive Genetics. In 2018, he moved to Canada to become the Canada 150 Research Chair in Developmental Epigenetics, Senior Investigator at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute and Full Professor in the Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Toronto. In 2025, he became the Anne and Max Tanenbaum Chair in Molecular Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital.

His lab has made important contributions to our understanding of the regulation of early embryonic development, gene expression in stem cells, hypertranscription, cellular dormancy, developmental role of transposons and environment-epigenome interactions during development. More information about his research can be found here: https://www.mrsantoslab.org

Dr. Russell Rockne began his education with a dual bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and Fine Art at the University of Colorado at Boulder, followed by a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Washington in 2013, and then a postdoctoral fellowship in Mathematical Oncology at Northwestern University. He joined City of Hope in 2015 as an Assistant Professor and is the founding Director of the Division of Mathematical Oncology and Computational Systems Biology within the Department of Computational and Quantitative Medicine.

Dr. Rockne’s interdisciplinary career spans many roles, including research in neurological surgery, pathology, and applied mathematics. In 2014, he was honored with the “Future of Mathematical Biology” award by the Society for Mathematical Biology. His research focuses on leveraging mathematical modeling to advance basic, translational, and clinical science, with applications across multiple diseases and therapeutic modalities, including immunotherapy, targeted therapies, and precision oncology.

Ralf J. Sommer works in the field of evolutionary developmental biology and developmental genetics. He established the nematode Pristionchus pacificus as model system for integrative studies in evolutionary biology. His lab has published more than 250 publications on this nematode, covering areas from genetics and development to genomics, bioinformatics, ecology and taxonomy. Currently, his research focuses on the origin and evolution of novelty and the significance of developmental plasticity and transgenerational inheritance for evolution. Sommer is director at the Max Planck Institute for Biology Tübingen, Germany, since 1999. He is adjunct professor at the University of Tübingen and previously worked as research fellow at CALTECH (1993-1995) after earning his Ph.D. at the LMU Munich. Sommer is a member of EMBO.

Dr. Ye Tian earned her B.S. degree in Biotechnology from Beijing Normal University in 2005, followed by a Ph.D. degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from a joint program of Beijing Normal University and the National Institute of Biological Sciences, Beijing in 2010. Her academic journey continued with postdoctoral training at the Salk Institute and the University of California, Berkeley from 2010 to 2016. In 2016, she assumed the role of Principal Investigator at the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing.

Her research focuses on the regulatory mechanisms of mitochondrial stress and aging, resulting in several achievements. These include the discovery that neuronal mitochondria can transmit “stress memory” across generations by increasing mitochondrial DNA copy numbers in germ cells, enhancing offspring stress resistance and lifespan. Additionally, her work identified various cross-tissue mitochondrial signal exchanges influencing overall metabolism and aging. Furthermore, she uncovered the role of mitochondrial metabolites in regulating aging through epigenetic factors, providing a theoretical foundation for targeting metabolites to mitigate aging.

Dr. Ye Tian has published her research findings in prestigious international journals such as Cell (2010, 2016, 2018), Nature Cell Biology (2021), Developmental Cell (2022), Science Advances (2020), Cell Reports (2020, 2022), Nature Communications (2024), Aging Cell (2025), Journal of Cell Biology (2025), and SCIENCE CHINA Life Sciences (2025). Her contributions to the field have earned her accolades, including the 2021 Vcanbio Award for Bioscience and Medicine-Innovation Breakthrough, the 2022 Chinese Academy of Sciences Young Scientist Award, the 2022 Excellent Tutor Award of Yihai Kerry, the 2023 Gu Xiaocheng Lecture Award, and the 2024 Tecent Science Xplore Award. She is also a recipient of funding from the National Outstanding Youth Fund.

Dr. Nick Burton explores how our environment, especially microbes, can impact our health and the health of our offspring — even before they are born. His research has extensive implications for understanding how epigenetics contributes to human disease and how the environment we are exposed to today affects not only our own health, but also our children’s.

Dr. Derek Janssens explores the factors that give rise to blood cancers with the goal of informing improved diagnosis and treatment strategies. His research has contributed to powerful new methods that enable scientists to better study the complex factors that drive cancer development.

Dr. Adelheid (Heidi) Lempradl investigates how the dietary choices of parents may impact the health of their offspring in the hopes of translating her findings into new ways to prevent disease and create a healthier future.

Dr. J. Andrew Pospisilik seeks to understand how we become whom we become, and how our disease susceptibility is defined from early on in life, even before conception, with the long-term goal of being able to predict lifelong health outlook at birth.

Dr. Piroska Szabó studies the flow of epigenetic information from parents to their offspring, with a focus on how epigenetic markers are remodeled during egg and sperm production, and how these markers are rewritten after fertilization. These processes have profound implications on fertility and embryo development.