DRC Retreat

Opening Address

9:00 AM

Welcome and Introduction - DRC Director Dr. Alan Saltiel

9:10 AM

Andrea Hevener, PhD

UCLA

“Metabolic Resilience - Lessons from MoTrPAC”

2026 Pilot and Feasibility Awardee Talks

10:10 AM

Graham McVicker, PhD

Salk Institute

“Interrogating regulatory function of T1D risk variants with massively parallel reporter assays and single-cell QTLs”

10:30 AM

Claudio Villanueva, PhD

UCLA

“Translational Control of Adipose Tissue Plasticity in Metabolic Stress”

10:50 AM

Coffee Break

11:00 AM

Panel Discussion

“Strategies for survival in academic medicine in 2026”

Moderator: Alan Saltiel

Panelists: Andrea Hevener (UCLA), Peter Tontonoz (UCLA), Joseph Bass (Northwestern) and John Carrethers (UCSD)

12:00 PM

Lunch

1:30 PM

Hosung Bae, PhD

UC Irvine

“Unveiling Organ Crosstalk in Diabetes via Circulating Metabolite Exchange at the Whole-Body Level”

1:50 PM

Enchen Zhou, PhD

UCSD

“Intestinal liver X receptor a/b knockout alleviates diet-induced obesity and hepatic steatosis”

Keynote Address

2:30 PM

Introduction: DRC Co-director Peter Tontonoz, MD, PhD

Joseph Bass, MD, PhD

Charles F. Kettering Professor of Medicine

Chief of the Division of Endocrinology, Metabolism and Molecular Medicine

Department of Medicine of Feinberg School of Medicine

Northwestern University

“Circadian Bioenergetics and RNA Therapeutics”

3:30 PM

Poster Session and Reception