Uploaded May 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Eric and Wendy Schmidt Center Symposium: Biomedical Science and AI
April 28 - 29, 2026
Day 2, Invited talk: Global views of development
Alex Schier, Biozentrum University of Basel; Allen Institute
Abstract:
Progress in single-cell genomics, spatial transcriptomics, genome editing, live imaging, and AI has generated large-scale high-resolution atlases of development. While these efforts have generated much excitement, they have also raised the concern of "stamp collection". I will present our recent progress in generating global views of embryogenesis and discuss how the exploration of atlases and gene regulatory networks can help provide conceptual advances.
Speaker Bio:
Alex Schier has been Professor and Director of the Biozentrum at the University of Basel, Switzerland since 2018. He started his lab in 1996 at the Skirball Institute of the New York University School of Medicine and joined Harvard University in 2005, where he was the Leo Erikson Life Sciences Professor and Chair of the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology. Schier is a pioneer in developmental biology and neuroscience. He defined the first morphogen-inhibitor pair for Turing-like pattern formation, discovered the microRNA-induced degradation of maternal mRNAs and dissected the role and regulation of Nodal signaling. He and his collaborators developed creative technologies to establish zebrafish as a model system, including the establishment of large-scale genetic screens. He spearheaded the development of behavioral profiling and whole-brain imaging to analyze drugs and mutants and developed zebrafish as model for sleep research. Schier and his collaborators pioneered methods for understanding development at global scales. Through genomic barcode editing technology, single-cell sequencing and spatial transcriptomics they reconstructed the activity and location of thousands of mRNAs and hundreds of thousands of chromatin regions and the lineage relationships and differentiation trajectories of thousands of cells. Schier has been recognized by NIH MERIT and PIONEER awards, two ERC Advanced Grants, and election to EMBO,Academia Europaea, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the US National Academy of Sciences. His research was featured as Science Breakthrough of the Year 2018. Schier’s impact is also evidenced by the success of his many collaborators and his trainees. 20 of 24 graduate students in the Schier lab went on to postdoctoral research positions, and 35 of 42 postdocs started their own labs at leading institutions, including Yale, Princeton, Caltech, and University of Cambridge.
For more information, visit broad.io/ewsc-symposium-2026
Copyright Broad Institute, 2026. All rights reserved.
Eric and Wendy Schmidt Center Symposium: Biomedical Science and AI
April 28 - 29, 2026
Day 2, Invited talk: Global views of development
Alex Schier, Biozentrum University of Basel; Allen Institute
Abstract:
Progress in single-cell genomics, spatial transcriptomics, genome editing, live imaging, and AI has generated large-scale high-resolution atlases of development. While these efforts have generated much excitement, they have also raised the concern of "stamp collection". I will present our recent progress in generating global views of embryogenesis and discuss how the exploration of atlases and gene regulatory networks can help provide conceptual advances.
Speaker Bio:
Alex Schier has been Professor and Director of the Biozentrum at the University of Basel, Switzerland since 2018. He started his lab in 1996 at the Skirball Institute of the New York University School of Medicine and joined Harvard University in 2005, where he was the Leo Erikson Life Sciences Professor and Chair of the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology. Schier is a pioneer in developmental biology and neuroscience. He defined the first morphogen-inhibitor pair for Turing-like pattern formation, discovered the microRNA-induced degradation of maternal mRNAs and dissected the role and regulation of Nodal signaling. He and his collaborators developed creative technologies to establish zebrafish as a model system, including the establishment of large-scale genetic screens. He spearheaded the development of behavioral profiling and whole-brain imaging to analyze drugs and mutants and developed zebrafish as model for sleep research. Schier and his collaborators pioneered methods for understanding development at global scales. Through genomic barcode editing technology, single-cell sequencing and spatial transcriptomics they reconstructed the activity and location of thousands of mRNAs and hundreds of thousands of chromatin regions and the lineage relationships and differentiation trajectories of thousands of cells. Schier has been recognized by NIH MERIT and PIONEER awards, two ERC Advanced Grants, and election to EMBO,Academia Europaea, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the US National Academy of Sciences. His research was featured as Science Breakthrough of the Year 2018. Schier’s impact is also evidenced by the success of his many collaborators and his trainees. 20 of 24 graduate students in the Schier lab went on to postdoctoral research positions, and 35 of 42 postdocs started their own labs at leading institutions, including Yale, Princeton, Caltech, and University of Cambridge.
For more information, visit broad.io/ewsc-symposium-2026
Copyright Broad Institute, 2026. All rights reserved.
