Year 5. October 26. Research Day 2026 Underscores Our Leadership as an Academic Department of Medicine
For 20 years, UCLA Department of Medicine (DoM) Research Day has brought together one of the DoM’s greatest strengths, a community united by curiosity, innovation and a shared commitment to advancing health for all. This year’s research day was no exception and marks a pinnacle in exemplifying this deeply ingrained facet of our identity.
What began as an opportunity to showcase research across the department has grown into one of our most anticipated annual events. This year, nearly 450 faculty, trainees, staff and guests gathered to hear from four plenary speakers and explore over 370 poster presentations spanning the full breadth of inquiry taking place across our divisions. The event's growth has been so remarkable that I jokingly suggested we may need SoFi Stadium next year.
Although the numbers reflect the scale of our research enterprise, they tell only part of the story. Research Day is ultimately about people and ideas. It is about bringing together investigators at every stage of their careers to share discoveries, challenge assumptions, learn from one another and spark new collaborations.
Highlights from 2026 DoM Research Day
This year's plenary presentations embodied that spirit. Their subjects ranged from the biology of aging and the promise or perils of artificial intelligence in health care, to the health effects of wildfires on people experiencing homelessness and innovative approaches to precision immune therapy. Each speaker challenged us to look more closely at a question we thought we understood and consider how better evidence can lead to better medicine.
In this special 20th anniversary DoM Research Day edition, we highlight the four investigators who provided plenary lectures. Their work demonstrates the extraordinary diversity of research taking place across our department. Their discoveries span different disciplines, methods and populations, but they share a common thread. Each reflects a commitment to asking better questions, pursuing deeper understanding and ultimately improving the lives of the patients and communities we serve.
2026 DoM Research Day
Steve Horvath, PhD: What Our Biology Can Tell Us About Aging
We measure age in years, but anyone who has cared for patients knows that chronological age tells only part of the story. Two people born in the same year may experience remarkably different trajectories of health and disease. In his Research Day plenary, Steve Horvath, PhD, invited us to consider whether we can measure those differences at a molecular level and what doing so might ultimately teach us about aging itself.
His presentation, “Epigenetic Clocks: Measuring Biological Age and Slowing Aging in Humans,” explored how measurements of DNA methylation patterns could be used as epigenetic clocks. Unlike chronological age, these tools can capture differences in biological aging by analyzing DNA isolated from something as accessible as a blood sample, or cheek swab. People whose epigenetic age runs ahead of their chronological age have a higher risk of death and many age-related diseases, even after accounting for factors such as smoking and body weight. These clocks work across tissues and even across mammalian species, suggesting that part of aging is shared and measurable at the molecular level.
As Dr. Horvath explained, “Two people born in the same year can age at very different rates. Epigenetic clocks capture that difference from a blood sample.”
Particularly compelling was the care with which Dr. Horvath distinguished what these tools can tell us today from what we still hope they may reveal tomorrow.
“Biological age is not a single number,” he explained. Different clocks have been designed to answer different questions. Some track chronological age, while others measure mortality risk or the pace of aging. A biomarker that predicts an outcome does not necessarily tell us what causes it. An intervention might move an epigenetic clock without actually changing the underlying biology of aging.
For Dr. Horvath, the scientific standard for demonstrating otherwise is appropriately high. “A single clock moving in a small study is a signal worth following, not proof,” he said. To show that an intervention truly slows aging would require a randomized controlled trial demonstrating differences in biological age alongside meaningful reductions in disease and mortality. Rejuvenation would set an even higher bar, requiring molecular changes toward a younger state, improved function and benefits that persist after treatment ends.
Yet the possibilities are fascinating. One of the questions Dr. Horvath most wants to answer is what actually drives the epigenetic clock. If some aspects of aging reflect an ongoing biological program rather than accumulated damage alone, “then it may be possible to reset part of aging by reprogramming the epigenome without repairing every type of damage.”
That question has relevance throughout our department. During his talk, Dr. Horvath walked through our divisions one by one to show that nearly every division studies conditions in which biological age matters. He sees tremendous opportunity to connect aging research with the patients, cohorts, clinical trials and stored biological samples that already exist across the DoM. Investigators with stored samples from an intervention study are welcome to contact him.
Dr. Horvath presenting at 2026 DoM Research Day
Westyn Branch-Elliman, MD: Before We Ask What AI Can Do, Ask What Problem It Should Solve
Few subjects generate more conversation about the future of medicine than artificial intelligence. However, Westyn Branch-Elliman, MD, would have us begin somewhere more fundamental.
“I think the biggest one is: What is the problem I am trying to solve with AI, and is AI the right solution to this problem?” she said. “We are talking about AI a lot these days, but for many things, simpler solutions are more feasible.”
That simple question was at the heart of her plenary presentation, “Using Robots to Work Smarter, Not Harder: Integration of AI and ML Solutions in Care.” Drawing on research involving smart watch data to optimize Parkinson’s care, Dr. Branch-Elliman explored what it takes to move artificial intelligence and machine-learning tools from technically promising models into the complicated reality of patient care. One lesson is that the distance between an algorithm that performs well under ideal conditions and one that works in clinical practice can be significant. This distance includes time and space.
“Medical care, and the medical record, is messy,” Dr. Branch-Elliman noted. Models are generally trained on complete, curated datasets. Real-time clinical information does not behave that way. Data may be incomplete or delayed, and those realities have important implications for determining which clinical problems are actually suited to AI-supported solutions.
Dr. Branch-Elliman also urged clinicians to demand the same level of evidence from AI that they would expect from other tools introduced into clinical practice. A model that performs well retrospectively may not perform equally well when applied prospectively to real-time medical-record data. And even strong prospective performance does not necessarily mean that the information produced will change practice or improve outcomes.
“We need to make sure we are identifying good use cases for AI and also demanding evidence of benefit before we will see improvements in clinical care,” she said.
That insistence on evidence is paired with a distinctly optimistic view of the physician’s place in medicine’s technological future. Amid predictions that AI might eventually replace doctors, Dr. Branch-Elliman sees a different possibility.
“AI is a tool and we need to figure out how to use the tool effectively,” she said. Her hope is that technology can serve as “another hand” that leads to meaningful improvements for patients, with clinicians and patients helping shape its development and implementation.
It is also why she sees a role for everyone in research. Reflecting on Research Day, Dr. Branch-Elliman said she hopes participants come away appreciating the breadth of clinical research and recognizing that they can contribute even if they do not consider themselves researchers: “Everyone has a part to play!” The future of AI in medicine may be exciting, but Dr. Branch-Elliman’s work reminds us that innovation does not begin with the newest technology. It begins by defining the right problem, gathering the right evidence and bringing the right people to the table.
Dr. Branch-Elliman leading a plenary session at 2026 DoM Research Day
Evan Michael Shannon, MD, MPH: When Disaster Is One of Many Crises
The January 2025 Los Angeles County wildfires were an extraordinary disaster. For people experiencing homelessness, however, Evan Michael Shannon, MD, MPH, and his colleagues found that the fires arrived against a backdrop of immense hardship that was already part of everyday life.
His plenary presentation, “No Shelter from the Storm: Wildfires and Homelessness in Los Angeles County,” examined how the firestorm affected people experiencing homelessness through the Periodic Assessment of Trajectories of Housing, Homelessness and Health Study, or PATHS. This ongoing longitudinal study follows over 1,000 people experiencing homelessness in Los Angeles County, giving investigators an unusual opportunity to examine health before and after a major disaster.
Among 534 active PATHS participants, 55.6% reported disruption from the firestorm. Those living primarily without shelter were especially vulnerable, with Dr. Shannon pointing to the straightforward but important reality that “living out in the elements placed you at higher risk of exposure.”
Another finding, however, requires us to look more closely.
The researchers did not find consistent evidence that fire-related disruption subsequently worsened participants’ self-reported physical or mental health. At first glance, that might seem surprising. Dr. Shannon explained that the context in which those findings occurred is critical.
“Self-reported measures of physical and mental health are already poor at baseline for this population,” he said. People experiencing homelessness regularly confront significant disruptions, from encampment relocations and involvement with the criminal justice system to the deaths of friends and family members. “So, for unhoused Angelenos, the January wildfire was just one among many traumatic experiences.”
The absence of a dramatic change after the fires, should not be mistaken for an absence of hardship. Instead, it reveals something about the level of hardship that was already present.
The PATHS study was uniquely positioned to surface that reality. Disaster research often begins after the disaster occurs. Since Dr. Shannon and his colleagues were already following participants longitudinally, they could examine health trajectories before and after the firestorm rather than attempting to reconstruct participants’ previous experiences after the fact.
Those findings also point toward action. Dr. Shannon believes disaster planning should include specific protocols for people experiencing homelessness, ranging from outreach and social services to shelter, and that those plans should ideally be shaped by people with lived experience of homelessness.
His work reminds us of the importance of asking not only how a disaster affects a population, but also what that population was experiencing before disaster struck.
It is research made stronger by collaboration, something Dr. Shannon sees as central to the culture of UCLA.
“These collaborations, not only within the department but across the school of medicine and the university, create the incredible research that makes UCLA the academic beacon that it is,” he said. Research Day gives him an opportunity not only to hear about the work of colleagues and trainees, but also “to find opportunities to collaborate.”
Sometimes the most important questions are the ones that allow us to see more clearly the people whose experiences might otherwise be overlooked.
Dr. Shannon presents his latest research at 2026 DoM Research Day
Reza Abdi, MD: Treating Disease with Greater Precision
For decades, immunosuppressive therapies have allowed us to accomplish what was once unimaginable, from preventing rejection after organ transplantation to controlling serious autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. But those successes have come with an enduring challenge: suppressing the immune response we do not want without compromising the protection patients still need. Reza Abdi, MD, is asking whether we can do better.
“The immune system works across the whole body, so reaching the cells that drive disease without affecting protective immunity has been difficult,” Dr. Abdi explained. “We have also lacked reliable ways to deliver enough drug to the right tissue and keep it there.”
His Research Day plenary, “Precision Immune Therapy: From Systemic Immunosuppression to Targeted Immune Modulation,” explored a new generation of approaches designed to deliver immunosuppressive therapies directly to transplanted organs, lymphoid tissues and organs affected by autoimmune and inflammatory disease.
The goal is to improve efficacy while reducing the systemic toxicity that has long accompanied immunosuppressive treatment. Advances in our understanding of the cells that drive disease are now converging with new approaches for reaching them. Dr. Abdi pointed to antibodies, nanoparticles and other delivery tools, many of which were pioneered in his laboratory, as examples of technologies creating new possibilities.
But as with many emerging areas explored during our plenary sessions, possibility must ultimately be matched by evidence. The next step is demonstrating that these approaches are safe, effective and practical for patients. The potential benefit is significant.
“We could control rejection or inflammation where it starts while preserving more of the immune system’s ability to fight infection,” Dr. Abdi said. “That could mean better disease control with less medication and fewer side effects.” Ultimately, however, the reason to pursue greater precision is not the sophistication of the science. It is what that science could mean for a patient.
“What excites me most is the possibility of giving patients the treatment they need without asking them to live with so many of its consequences,” Dr. Abdi said. “We are beginning to connect a deeper understanding of immune biology with real ways to deliver treatment more precisely.”
That idea captures something important about the research represented at this year’s DoM Research Day. Precision is not simply about developing more sophisticated tools. It is about understanding a problem deeply enough that we can intervene more intelligently and, ultimately, improve people’s lives.
Dr. Abdi also offered a fitting reflection on why bringing our research community together matters.
“Each perspective helps us see something we might otherwise miss, from how disease begins to what patients actually need,” he said. “Bringing them together helps us ask better questions and turn discoveries into care that makes a difference.”
After hearing the extraordinary range of work represented throughout DoM Research Day, it is difficult to imagine a better expression of what this gathering is intended to foster.
Dr. Abdi answers questions from the audience at 2026 DoM Research Day
The Questions That Carry Us Forward
As we celebrate the 20th anniversary of DoM Research Day, we also celebrate the people who make discovery possible.
The plenary speakers reminded us that every advance begins with curiosity and that meaningful progress comes from a willingness to challenge assumptions, pursue new ideas and learn from one another.
The more than 300 posters presented this year offer a glimpse of what lies ahead. Together, they reflect a vibrant research community that continues to expand knowledge, improve lives and inspire the next generation of investigators.
DoM Research Day would not be possible without the many faculty, trainees and staff members who work behind the scenes to plan, coordinate and bring this event to life each year. I am also deeply grateful to the faculty judges who generously contributed their time and expertise to review posters and engage with presenters. Their commitment helps make Research Day not only a showcase for discovery, but also an opportunity for mentorship, feedback and professional growth.
As we look ahead, I am inspired by the talent, dedication and collaborative spirit reflected throughout this year's event. Here's to the next 20 years of discovery.
In Case You Missed It: Susan Ettner, PhD, and Dennis J. Slamon, MD, PhD, Elected to the National Academy of Medicine
As we reflect on the innovation and discovery showcased during DoM Research Day, we are reminded that the impact of research extends far beyond a single day. It is built through years of dedication, collaboration and a commitment to advancing medicine in ways that benefit patients and society.
That spirit is exemplified by two members of our department whose contributions have shaped their fields and improved countless lives. We are pleased to re-share the announcement recognizing Susan Ettner, PhD, and Dennis Slamon, MD, PhD, on their election to the National Academy of Medicine, one of the highest honors in health and medicine. Hear from them about the people and experiences that shaped their careers, what this honor means to them and the lessons they hope the next generation will carry forward.
Congratulations to Drs. Ettner and Slamon and to all the investigators in the DoM, whose commitment to lead in innovation, transform care and advance health for all are a source of inspiration for all of us and hope for those who will benefit from our discoveries.
Dale
P.S.
I went into my office at Reagan the other day and found this on my desk. I am not sure which kind person left this, and I wondered if they believed that maybe I was undernourished and needed some more sustenance. I paused, and then realized that maybe this was my Halloween candy??
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