The NLM Colloquia on Biomedical Data Science and Computational Biology Research is a regularly scheduled series of scientific lectures presented by the NLM Division of Intramural Research (DIR), a premier hub of innovation for computational biology and biomedical data science.
The NLM DIR invites experts from outside NLM to present at the Colloquia, where they can share their insights with research communities across NIH and worldwide in the rapidly evolving fields of biomedical data science and computational biology research, as well as how their work impacts these topic areas.
2026 NLM Colloquia Series
Recipes for Building Agents for Biomedical Discovery
Event Date: Monday, July 20, 2026
Time: 11:00am–12:00pm
Speaker: Hanchen Wang, PhD
Location: The Lister Hill Center Auditorium (LHC, building 38A), and virtual via NIH Videocast
Abstract:
This talk will discuss building AI agents for biomedical discovery, focusing on integrating language models with biological knowledge and domain-specific tools to support research workflows. Also, I will share what worked, what failed, what we learned about reliability, evaluation, and human-agent collaboration, and where the field may be heading in the near future.
Speaker Bio:
Hanchen Wang, PhD is a postdoctoral fellow jointly affiliated at Stanford University with Jure Leskovec and Genentech with Aviv Regev. His research develops computational methods to understand biological systems and advance discovery. His leading work has appeared in Nature, Science, Nature Biotechnology, and NeurIPS. He received his PhD from Cambridge, UK, working with Joan Lasenby at Trinity College, and his Physics B.S. from Nanjing..
How to Join:
Location: The Lister Hill Center Auditorium (LHC, Building 38A)
This talk will also be broadcast live: NIH Videocast
Interpreting services are available upon request. Individuals with disabilities who need reasonable accommodation to participate in this lecture should contact NLMColloquia@nih.gov or the Federal Relay (1-800-877-8339).
Questions during the presentation can be sent to: NLMColloquia@nih.gov.
Sponsored by:
Richard Scheuermann, PhD
Scientific Director, Division of Intramural Research, National Library of Medicine