skip to main content
Caltech
Merkin Institute Logo
Merkin Institute Home  /  Events  /  Workshops  /  Cedars-Sinai / Caltech Collaborative (C3) Workshop, March 2026

Cedars-Sinai / Caltech Collaborative (C3) Workshop, March 2026

Workshop: "From Clinical Need to Cross-Disciplinary Solutions"

Details: 1:00 pm - 6:00 pm, March 12, 2026, at the Wilshire Country Club

Invited Speakers:

  • Shelly C. Lu, MD (Cedars-Sinai): Hepatocellular Carcinoma in Metabolic Dysfunction-Associated Steatotic Liver Disease (MASLD)
  • Pamela J. Bjorkman, PhD (Caltech): A COVID-19 booster that could prevent another pandemic
  • Raj Makkar, MD (Cedars-Sinai): Valve Durability
  • Kaihang Wang, PhD (Caltech): Personalized mRNA therapeutics constructed in 48 hours via Sidewinder
  • Geoffrey S. Marecek, MD (Cedars-Sinai): Bone Defects: Biology, Stability and Mobility
  • Dianne K. Newman, PhD (Caltech): Hijacking anaerobic metabolism to combat chronic bacterial infections
  • Irene K. Kim, MD (Cedars-Sinai): Optimization of Marginal Organ for Transplantation
  • Michael B. Elowitz, PhD (Caltech): Therapeutic circuits: Using synthetic biology to treat disease
  • Andrew J. Hung, MD (Cedars-Sinai): Surgeon-driven autonomous robotic surgery
  • Alessio Tamborini, PhD (Caltech, Laboratory of Morteza Gharib): Ultrasound Shape Sensing for Radiation Free Endovascular Navigation

Workshop Agenda: Cedars-Sinai and the Merkin Institute for Translational Research at Caltech have launched a joint initiative to strengthen our partnership and catalyze research collaborations that unite clinical insight, engineering and fundamental biological discovery. This workshop, entitled "From Clinical Need to Cross-Disciplinary Solutions", aims to spark "lightbulb moments" between researchers with vastly different areas of expertise, with the hope that cross-institutional brainstorming might help solve the most intractable problems in human healthcare. The first hour of the event is comprised of short talks by Cedars-Sinai clinicians on prominent clinical challenges that they encounter in their practice, and by Caltech PIs on their medically-relevant tools and technologies, broadly defined. These lightning talks are designed to serve as launchpads for the subsequent breakout session discussions of collaborative opportunities between Caltech and Cedars faculty during the remainder of the symposium. The symposium concluded with an announcement of the Cedars-Sinai / Caltech Collaborative (C3) Research Pilot Grantees of Spring 2026.