10th Annual BAD Meeting: Friday June 5th, 2026
Mass General Brigham, Assembly Row, Somerville, MA
LOCAL ORGANIZERS
James Walker (Assistant Professor, Mass General Brigham)
Alexey Veraksa (Professor, University of Massachusetts Boston)
KEYNOTE SPEAKER:
Prof. Troy Littleton
Menicon Professor in Neuroscience. The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory and Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
AGENDA
For a PDF version of the schedule, click here.
A complete list of poster presenters and titles can be found here.
| 8:30 am | Check-In |
| 9:30– 10:30 | Session 1 Moderator: Alexey Veraksa (University of Massachusetts Boston) |
| 9:30 | Ying Liu (Harvard Medical School) A Cytokine-Lipid Axis in Cancer Cachexia |
| 9:45 | Neta Marmor-Kollet (Brandeis University) Circuit-Specific Post-Transcriptional Regulation Uncouples Circadian Pacing from Sleep Homeostasis via Developmental Wiring |
| 10:00 | Komal Suthar (UMass Chan Medical School) Calcium signaling regulates apoptosis-induced proliferation in Drosophila |
| 10:15 | Chen Zhang (Harvard Medical School) Glial Presenilin Supports Neuronal Survival in the Aging Drosophila Brain |
| 10:30-11:00 | Coffee, Tea, & Snacks |
| 11:00– 12:15pm | Session 2 Moderator: Stephanie Mohr (Director of DRSC/TRiP-FGR, Lecturer on Genetics, Harvard Medical School) |
| 11:00 | Ten Harder (Boston University) Investigating the Roles of Schizophrenia Associated Genes on Synaptic Dysfunction During Development |
| 11:15 | Sherilyn Grill (MIT) Nanos Protects the Totipotent Potential of Germ Cells |
| 11:30 | Alex Dyson (Massachusetts General Brigham) Identification of novel NF1 disease mechanisms using Drosophila |
| Lightning Talks | |
| 11:45 | Diego Borges-Rivera (Clark University) The graphical structure of the Antennapedia complex |
| 11:52 | Ankit Sharma (Brandeis University) Time of Day dependent memory formation: Mushroom body tale |
| 12:00 pm | Dan Koskas (Boston College) Motor Protein Dependent Nuclear Number and Spacing in Subperineurial Glial Cells |
| 12:08 | Amelie Raz (MIT) Transcription factor Ovo orchestrates an inducible piRNA response during episodes of transposon threat in the male germline |
| 12:15 | Lunch |
| 1:00 | Poster Session |
| 2:00– 3:30 | Session 3 Co-Moderators: Torrey Mandigo (Mass General Brigham) and Jim Walker (Mass General Brigham) |
| 2:00 | Alexander Bates (Harvard Medical School) The BANC: a central nervous system connectome for the fly |
| 2:15 | Christian Arntsen (University of Vermont) Connectomic analysis of amino acid gustation reveals key sensorimotor circuit structures |
| 2:30 | Altar Sorkac (Brown University) Convergent olfactory circuits for courtship in Drosophila revealed by ds-Tango |
| 2:45 | Heena Khurana (UMass Boston) A novel role of a visual signaling complex in the development and stabilization of the light-sensing compartments |
| Lightning Talks | |
| 3:00 | Gunjan Singh (Brown University) Chromatin-linked repression shapes developmental synaptic gene expression and synapse formation |
| 3:08 | David Kotlikoff (Brandeis University) New tools for comparative neuroanatomy across Diptera |
| 3:15 | Swastik Mukherjee (UMass Boston) CG14767: a novel regulator of the Hippo/Yki tumor suppressor pathway |
| 3:22 | Sara Martin (Tufts University) Genotoxic and genome protective roles of RNASE H2 during Drosophila embryogenesis |
| 3:30–4:00 | Break – Refreshments |
| 4:00– 5:00 | Keynote Address: Dr. Troy Littleton Characterization of Synaptic Development and Functional Diversity across Drosophila Motoneuron Subtypes |
| 5:00 pm | Poster and Talk Awards |