2026 Automation Symposium

2026 Automation Symposium
Wednesday, May 13, 2026 • 2:30–5:00 PM
Fred Hutch • Pelton Auditorium
1100 Fairview Ave N, Seattle, WA 98109

2:15–2:30 PM — Coffee/Tea
2:30–2:40 PM — Welcome & Opening Remarks
●Nasa Sinnott-Armstrong and James Carothers
2:40–3:40 PM — Keynote #1: Huimin Zhao (UIUC)
●An AI-powered Self-driving Biofoundry for Synthetic Biology

3:40-4:10 PM — Contributed Talks: Automation Across Institutions

Short talks (10 minutes each)
●Allison Li (UW, Biology Department)
○In silico modeling guides the design of combinatorial antigen recognition in CART cell therapies
●Jingyi Jessica Li (Fred Hutch PHS Biostatistics)
○Transparent AI for Differential Expression: Marrying Statistical Rigor with NaturalLanguage Interfaces
●Sebastian Castillo-Hair (UW Electrical and Computer Engineering Department)
○Programming human cell type-specific gene expression via AI-designedregulatory DNA

4:10–4:20 PM — Contributed talks Q&A
4:20–4:50 PM —Keynote #2: Eric Klavins (UW)
●Programming the Lab

4:50–5:00 PM — Closing Remarks & Networking Invitation
●Maitreya Dunham
5:00– 6:00PM — Happy Hour: Sponsored in part by Opentrons