- Speaker
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Stephen R. Quake, Ph.D.Lee Otterson Professor of Bioengineering, Stanford University
The 2026 lecture series in biology is “Folding the Future: The Structural Biology Revolution.” In this series, scientists will explore the rapid advances transforming how we visualize and engineer the molecular machinery of life. From breakthroughs in protein structure prediction to innovations in integrative structural biology, speakers will examine how these computational and experimental tools are reshaping drug discovery, synthetic biology, and our broader understanding of cellular function.
2026 Lecture Series Themes
Biology – Folding the Future: The Structural Biology Revolution
Mathematics and Computer Science – Randomness
Neuroscience and Autism Science – Brain and Body: Communication and Connection
Presidential Lectures are a series of free public colloquia spotlighting groundbreaking research across four themes: neuroscience and autism science, physics, biology, and mathematics and computer science. These curated, high-level scientific talks feature leading scientists and mathematicians and are designed to foster discussion and drive discovery within the New York City research community. We invite those interested in these topics to join us for this weekly lecture series.
Although the genome is often called the blueprint of an organism, it is perhaps more accurate to describe it as a parts list composed of the various genes that may or may not be used in the different cell types of a multicellular organism. Although nearly every cell in the body has essentially the same genome, each cell type makes different use of that genome and expresses a subset of all possible genes. This has motivated efforts to characterize the molecular composition of various cell types in humans and across multiple model organisms, using both transcriptional and proteomic approaches.
In this Presidential Lecture, Stephen Quake will present how his team used single-cell transcriptomics to create a human reference atlas comprising more than 1 million cells from 24 different tissues and organs, many from the same donor. This atlas enabled molecular characterization of more than 400 cell types, their distribution across tissues and tissue-specific variation in gene expression and provides an experimental basis for understanding the cell type diversity that can be generated from a single genome.
About the Speaker
Quake is the Lee Otterson Professor of Bioengineering and Applied Physics at Stanford University. He has received numerous awards for his contributions to science and is one of only two dozen scientists elected to all three National Academies. Previously, he was head of science at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (2022–2025), founding co-president of the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub (2016–2022), a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator (2006-2016), and a professor at the California Institute of Technology (1996–2005).