BGD Unreal 004: October Lightning Talks

You are invited to join the Boston Women in Bioinformatics on Thursday, October 1st, 2026, 5:00–9:00 PM for an evening dinner and panel discussion on the history and current state of women's health research. Women's health is one of the fastest-growing sectors in biotech. According to Silicon Valley Bank's 2025 Innovation in Women's Health Report, VC investment hit $2.6 billion in 2024, a 55% jump from the year before, outpacing the broader healthcare sector. The growth is increasingly in therapeutics and data-intensive science. Integrated genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics are being applied to conditions that have been understudied for decades. The evening's conversation will span federal policy, data infrastructure, reproductive health research, and the current VC landscape — tracing how a decades-long data gap formed and where the field is moving now. Along the way, we’ll touch on current opportunities in the space for research, investment, and the next generation of computational scientists. Open to all — members, allies, biotech professionals and the data-curious. A G E N D A 5:00–5:45 PM | Registration 5:45-6:30 PM | Opening Remarks: Yevgenia Khodor, BWIB President; Eli Lilly; words from our sponsors 6:30–7:30 PM | Panel & Q&A 7:30–9:00 PM | Dinner & Networking; raffle and silent auction P A N E L I S T S Ashley Abel, Ph.D. | CEO & Co-Founder, Metri Bio Brandi Davis-Dusenbery, Ph.D. | Principal (Partner), ZS Associates Shruthi Mahalingaiah, M.D., M.S. | Associate Professor, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Ida Moeller, Ph.D. | Vice President, Head of Data Science and Computational Biology, Eli Lilly and Company Sheri Simmons, Ph.D. | Acting CSO, MaaT Pharma; Founder, KMS Bioinnovation Consulting, LLC Boston Women in Bioinformatics brings together the researchers, industry professionals, and students who are already, and want to be, part of where the field is heading. BWIB's Fall Fundraiser is one of our rare ticketed events. Proce

You’ll want to say you were there. We’re taking over the WHOOP rooftop for a massive back-to-school kickoff party with food, drinks, games, and Boston’s most ambitious founders and students. Limited spots. Don’t miss it.

Boston AI Week 2026: Core Week Closing Party at Island Creek Oysters Raw Bar Date: Friday, October 2, 2026 Time: 5:30 PM - 8:30 PM Location: Island Creek Oysters Raw Bar, Seaport, Boston Join us for the official Closing Party of Boston AI Week 2026 at Island Creek Oysters Raw Bar in the Seaport, the same waterfront location as the Opening Party, an annual tradition that bookends the festival. After nine days of talks, workshops, demos, and gatherings across Massachusetts, we end the festival the way we started it: fresh oysters, great food and drinks, and plenty of networking with the founders, executives, investors, researchers, students, and builders who made the week. The Closing Party is where the week's connections become lasting ones. About Boston AI Week: Boston AI Week 2026 runs September 24 through October 2, with events across the Commonwealth organized into one unified calendar. Last year, the festival brought together 125 events and 249 organizations, and tallied tens of thousands of attendees across 23 days and 8,000 square miles of Massachusetts. This year will be bigger. Explore the festival: Full schedule: https://aiweek.boston Opening Party at Island Creek Oysters Raw Bar, Friday, September 25: https://www.meetup.com/boston-ai-week/events/315063562/ AI in Massachusetts Workforce Development and Career Fair, Metcalf Ballroom at Boston University, Tuesday, September 29: https://aiweek.boston/massachusetts-workforce-in-ai Boston AI Summit, our flagship executive conference in the Seaport, Thursday, October 1: https://aiweek.boston/summit Contribute to The State of AI in Massachusetts 2026 by taking the survey: https://aiweek.boston/survey Ways to take part: Join the community to RSVP, build a personal agenda, and follow announcements: https://aiweek.boston/join Host an event, always free: https://aiweek.boston/host-event The Host Guide covers everything from planning to promotion: https://aiweek.boston/apply-to-speakhttps://aiweek.boston/host

Been curious about Boston's only living Game Dev Coworking/Community space? This is the perfect time to come check it out! Details: The event is open to everyone involved in game development and Free to attend. We have a Capacity Limit, managed by Meetup. You must confirm your attendance on Meetup if you are planning to attend. Exception: Paying Coworking Members are always welcome into the space and can attend as usual without any event registration. This event will occur on the first Monday of every month, show up anytime either in the coworking day (9am-5pm) or afterwards for the hangout starting at 5:30pm until 7/8pm when people shuffle out. Enjoy luxurious amenities such as cheap coffee and free water from our convenient downtown location! Stay on top of industry trends and grow your skills as a developer by working alongside other industry professionals Join the Critical Mass! Discord for any communication needs. Website Link: https://www.criticalmassgame.dev/

Building the product used to be the expensive part, and it is now the cheapest thing a founder does. What nobody has made easier is deciding what to build, how small to keep the team, and when to start charging. This is the opening session of the AI-Native Company Builder Series, a recurring Boston conversation on what building actually looks like now. Paul Rios joins us for a fireside chat and open audience Q&A: how small a team stays, how fast the loop runs, and what a founder is still for. Tuesday, October 6, 6:00 PM at One Lincoln. Seats are limited. Register to hold yours. ❯ Guest Speakers include: Ignacio Castro (Managing Partner, 128vc) Erika Bartucca (Co-Founder, Via AI) Paul Rios (GTM Leadership, Lovable) ❯ What You'll Learn: What changes in the first 90 days when AI is a founding assumption rather than an add-on; How small a founding team can stay, and where that stops working; Which parts of company building to hand to agents, and which to keep yourself; How AI-native teams run a build, test and customer loop in days instead of months; What Paul Rios would do differently if he started his company today. ❯ Who Should Attend: Career changers with deep industry experience who want to build with it instead of for someone else; First-time and solo founders with an idea but no team, no technical co-founder and no obvious first step; Professionals watching AI reshape their industry who want to be on the building side of it; Founders already building who want to see how far a small team goes before hiring anyone. . ❯❯ This is an in-person event, so be sure to RSVP at https://fi.co/e/405276/meetup to secure your spot and receive further details.

Explore the food scene of Boston's South Station region while getting your healthy dose of industry networking in! Details: The event is open to everyone involved in game development and Free to attend but you'll be buying your own food. We have a Capacity Limit, managed by Meetup. You must confirm your attendance on Meetup if you are planning to attend. Exception: Paying Coworking Members and those that co-worked the day of the event do not need to register and are guaranteed a spot to every event run by the space. We'll be launching our way to a restaurant from the Critical Mass! Office Every Other Wednesday at 12:30 Afternoon. Meet us at the office before 12:30 else coordinate on Discord to meet us on location. Please add any food spot recommendations and vote for the ones you like within the Critical Mass! Discord. The Weekly destinations will be announced on Discord, the day of the event. Join the Critical Mass! Discord for any communication needs. Website: https://www.criticalmassgame.dev/ Discord Link available on website and on meetup for attendees.