UC San Diego Experts Bring Innovative Discoveries to the Global Stage at SXSW 2026

Can Biotech Help Save Coral Reefs?

In this panel, Daniel Wangpraseurt, an interdisciplinary marine biologist who leads the Coral Reef Ecophysiology and Engineering Lab at UC San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography, will explore how biotechnology advances, materials science and collaborative partnerships are converging to give reefs a fighting chance. He will be joined on the panel by an ocean advocate, along with leaders from Coral Restoration Consortium and XPRIZE, to discuss new tools to restore reefs faster, smarter and more effectively.

From Neanderthal DNA to the Dark Genome: Diversity Explained

Presenter Alysson Muotri, professor of medicine at UC San Diego School of Medicine and director of the UC San Diego SSCI Integrated Space Stem Cell Orbital Research Center, will discuss how his work creating brain organoids is shedding light on factors that make modern humans unique — and especially susceptible to neurological conditions. Muotri’s session will also explore how the Dark Genome might shape personality and why it all matters for the future of human aging, medicine and the colonization of Mars.

Can Science Safeguard Earth’s Wildlife?

This panel will feature Jack Gilbert, a microbiologist and professor at UC San Diego School of Medicine’s Department of Pediatrics and Scripps Institution of Oceanography, alongside experts from San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, Wildlife Conservation Society and Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom. As wildlife populations are under threat from habitat loss and climate change, the panel will discuss how biobanking, including the cryopreservation of living cells, and digital strategies can help give wildlife a lifeline.

Bespoke: How AI is Ushering in the Era of Precision Genetics

In this session, co-presenter Alexis Komor, associate professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at UC San Diego and the deputy director of its Sanford Stem Cell Innovation Center at the UC San Diego Sanford Stem Cell Institute, will showcase her pioneering base-editing method that was recently used to create a custom therapy for an infant with a rare, deadly disease.

Komor will be joined by co-presenter Gene Yeo, professor of cellular and molecular medicine and director of the Center for RNA Technologies and Therapeutics at UC San Diego School of Medicine, chief scientific advisor of its Sanford Laboratories for Innovative Medicines and director of its Sanford Stem Cell Innovation Center at the Sanford Stem Cell Institute. Yeo will discuss his approach of RNA-targeting precision therapeutics, which he used to target ALS and aid a child with developmental epileptic encephalopathy.

Both Komor and Yeo employ AI to discover the roots of polygenic diseases and decode the Dark Genome. Their session will highlight more on the promise the technology holds for the future of personalized treatment.