WACD 2025 Program: Celebrating the Value of Collaborative Science
Abstracts and Speaker Bios are now available.
Currently available talk or session titles now include PDF presentation links.
Tuesday, October 7th
8:30-9:00 Registration: Coffee & Lite Pastries (breakfast available at hotel)
9:00-9:15 Welcome & Opening Remarks – Host: Diane Miller (WACD President)
Land Acknowledgement
9:15-11:00 Session 1: Data Management for High Performance Computing
Sponsor : Agilent Technologies – Kelly Sheff, Genomics Specialist – Genomics and Multi-Omics Solutions from Agilent – Fit for a Diversity of Applications
Moderator: Jenn Page (Salk Institute)
Speaker: Sean Taylor, Research Computing & AI Strategy Leader (Independent) – From GPUs to IOUs: Tales of Computing and Cost Recovery in the Core
Speaker: Aarya Vaikakkara Chithran, Research Scientist – Microscopy (Seattle Children’s Research Institute) – Beyond the Instrument: How to Manage and Master Your Core Facility Data
Speaker: Sam Minot, Ph.D. (Fred Hutch Cancer Center) – Stewarding Data Distributed by Core Facilities: Lessons Learned in the Cloud
11:00-11:30 Coffee Break
11:30-12:45 Session 2: Cross Core Collaborations
Sponsor : Illumina – Darrell Dinwiddie, Sr. Sequencing Specialist – Driving the Multiomics Revolution: The latest innovations from Illumina
Moderator: Cassie Sather (Fred Hutch Cancer Center)
Speaker: Michele Black, Director, Flow Cytometry SRL (Fred Hutch Cancer Center) – Synergizing Technologies: A Workshop on Integrating Technologies Across Multiple Shared Resources and Disciplines with Flow Cytometry
Speaker: Alex Zevin, Director, Genomics (Fred Hutch Cancer Center) – Cross-Core Collaborations in Genomics
Speaker: Sujata Jana, Staff Scientist, Spatial Biology (Fred Hutch Cancer Center) – Synergizing Technologies: A Workshop on Integrating Technologies Across Multiple Shared Resources and Disciplines with Spatial Biology
12:45-2:10: Lunch, Vendor Visits and Networking
- 1:00-2:00 Lunch and Learn Presented by: BD Biosciences (Room M1-A303)
- Vendor Booths OPEN
2:10-3:25 Session 3: Communicating the Value of your Core to Institutional Leaders, to Users, to Potential Customers
Sponsor: New England Biolabs – Jeanne Geskes, Senior Field Application Specialist – Breaking Through Bias to Redefine Precision in Small RNA Library Prep
Moderator: Ben Abrams (UCSC)
Speaker: Claudius Mundoma, Director, Shared Research Platforms (Stanford) – Communicating the VALUE of Your Core
Speaker: Alex Noble, Cores Administrative Manager (Salk institute) – Core Satisfaction Surveys
Speaker: Alison Killilea, Director, Stem Cell & Cell Culture Facility (UC Berkeley) – Experience with the Second Lab platform at the UC Berkeley Cell Culture Facility
3:25-3:55 Coffee Break
3:55-4:30 Session 4: Lead into Keynote
ABRF Introduction – Sara Bowen (Barrow Neurological Institute) – Publishing Options for SRR Personnel
Sponsor: Qiagen – Shu Lang, Field Application Specialist – How QIAGEN works with Genomics Cores
Moderator: Cassie Sather (Fred Hutch Cancer Center)
4:30-5:30 Keynote Speaker: Alice Berger, Associate Professor Human Biology Division (Fred Hutch Cancer Center)
5:30-7:00: Cocktail Reception
Sponsor: QIAGEN
Wednesday, October 8th
8:30-9:00: Coffee & Lite Pastries (breakfast available at hotel)
9:00-10:45 Session 5: Leadership
Sponsor: Parse Biosciences – Matt DeGiovanni, Technical Sales Manager – Enabling Cores with Scalable and High-quality Single Cell Solutions
Moderator: Sara Bowen (Barrow Neurological Institute)
Speaker: Naledi Saul, Director, Career and Professional Development (UCSF) – How to have a productive disagreement: What to do if you don’t know what to say
10:45-11:00 Coffee Break
11:00-12:15 Session 6: Cores in the Community
Sponsor: 10x Genomics – Daphne Cooper Ph.D., Senior Science & Technology Advisor – The Next Generation of Single Cell and Spatial Genomics Technology
Moderator: Jenn Page (Salk Institute)
Speaker: Spencer Seiler, Postdoc, Co-founder, CEO and Kateryna Voitiuk, Postdoc, CTO Open Culture Science (UCSC) – From Bench to Business: How NSF I-Corps Jumpstarts Commercial Thinking for Scientists
Speaker: Bria Metzger (University of Washington, Lil “Little” Lab Network) – The Lil Lab Network: Linking Local Curiosity to Research Resources
Speaker: Keolu Fox (Native Bio) – Earth Friendly Computation and Indigenous Data Sovereignty
12:15-1:30: Lunch, Vendor Visits, Networking
- 12:30-1:30 Lunch and Learn Presented by: Ultima Genomics – Ariel Jaimovich, VP Applications – Unleashing Sequencing at Scale (Room M1-A303)
- Vendor Booths OPEN
1:30-3:00 Session 7: Continuing the Discussion About Core Centralization vs. Decentralization
Sponsor: Seer Bio – Ryan Hill, Director, Field Application Scientist – Unlocking the Power of High-Throughput Proteomics for Biomarker Discovery
Moderator: Ben Abrams (UCSC)
Speaker: Gordon Roble, AVP, Shared Resources (Fred Hutch Cancer Center) – AVP Shared Resources
Speaker: Rajesh Uthamanthil, AVP, Research & Innovation (Seattle Children’s Research Institute)
Speaker: Isabelle Girard, Director, Research Core Facilities Program (UCD)
3:00-3:15 Coffee Break
3:15-4:45 Session 8: Alternate Methods to Fund Equipment Purchase
Moderator: Kristen Jepsen (UCSD)
Speaker: Aaron Larson, Director of Operations, Shared Research Resources (Seattle Children’s Research Institute) – Philanthropic Investment and Core Facilities
Speaker: Shelly Fortner, Vice Chair of Finance and Administration (University of Colorado School of Medicine, Anschutz) – Alternative Funding for Capital Expenses: Leases
Speaker: Doug Turnbull, Director, Genomics and Cell Characterization Core Facility (GC3F) (University of Oregon) – Strategies for Funding Large Instrument Upgrades in a Relatively Small Research Core Facility
4:45-5:00 Closing Remarks
