Events

Join us for upcoming events at the ASU Biodesign Institute.

Arntzen Grand Challenges

The Arntzen Grand Challenges Lecture series is inspired by Charles (Charlie) Arntzen, founding director of the ASU Biodesign Institute.

Dr. Arntzen is internationally recognized for his novel applied research on the development of genetic strategies for using plants to manufacture pharmaceuticals and produce cost-effective vaccines or drugs to save lives around the world, especially in developing nations.

Most recent lecture

Barbara Han

Predicting unknown unknowns about emerging infectious pathogens from animals

Thursday, Nov. 20, 2025 6 p.m.

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Past lectures

Presented by Barbara A. Han, Disease Ecologist at Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies.

How can we prepare for infectious diseases we've never encountered, emerging in unexpected places and carried by animals we barely understand?

In recent years, scientists have begun addressing this daunting challenge: predicting the “unknown unknowns” of disease emergence in human populations. These efforts are increasingly critical in a rapidly changing world, where human activities are transforming ecosystems, increasing contact between people and wildlife and creating new opportunities for pathogens to spill over.

In this Arntzen Grand Challenges lecture, Barbara Han examined how researchers are working to make sense of this complexity by integrating ecology, virology and artificial intelligence. She highlighted recent efforts that combine machine learning with biological data to identify bat species that may carry dangerous viruses such as Ebola—and how these approaches can help pinpoint where and when future threats might emerge. While these methods do not yet offer perfect foresight, they represent some of the most advanced tools available for guiding disease surveillance, management and prevention. By working across disciplines and viewing nature through new scientific lenses, researchers are beginning to shift the paradigm: from reacting to pandemics to anticipating them.

Han’s research is at the intersection of ecology, computing and global health. She has pioneered the use of machine learning and artificial intelligence tools to understand when and where new zoonotic diseases are likely to emerge and why.

The Arntzen Grand Challenges Lecture series is inspired by Charles (Charlie) Arntzen, founding director of the ASU Biodesign Institute.

Dr. Arntzen is internationally recognized for his novel applied research on the development of genetic strategies for using plants to manufacture pharmaceuticals and produce cost-effective vaccines or drugs to save lives around the world, especially in developing nations.

About ASU Biodesign Institute:

The Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University delivers the future of nature-inspired scientific innovation today for the betterment of human health, community safety and global sustainability. Its transdisciplinary scientists are united in discovering bold solutions that directly benefit the health of our ecosystem. From individuals, to communities, to the planet, we focus on benefiting the overall health of life by turning our discoveries into technologies that are resilient, adaptive and deployable now and into the future.

Connect with ASU Biodesign:

Visit Biodesign’s website: https://biodesign.asu.edu/
Follow ASU Biodesign on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ASUBiodesign/
Follow ASU Biodesign on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/asubiodesign/
Connect with ASU Biodesign on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/asu-biodesign-institute

Predicting unknown unknowns about emerging infectious pathogens from animals

Presented by Carolyn Bertozzi, Nobel laureate, Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Chemical and Systems Biology and Radiology (by courtesy) at Stanford University, and an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Complex sugars, which scientists call glycans, cover the surfaces of all living cells, where they serve as a molecular barcode that reports on the health status of the cell. Cancer cells are known to undergo changes in the structures and abundances of certain glycans, most prominently those that include a sugar-building block called sialic acid. Consequently, cancer cells have more sialic acids on their surface than healthy, normal cells. We discovered that this dense thicket of sialic acids allows cancer cells to escape recognition by our immune system, which allows the cancer to grow and spread. This finding motivated us to develop a new kind of cancer immune therapy that functions as a “lawnmower,” cutting the disease sugars off cancer cells so that the immune system can recognize them as diseased and kill them.

The Arntzen Grand Challenges Lecture series is inspired by Charles (Charlie) Arntzen, founding director of the ASU Biodesign Institute.

Dr. Arntzen is internationally recognized for his novel applied research on the development of genetic strategies for using plants to manufacture pharmaceuticals and produce cost-effective vaccines or drugs to save lives around the world, especially in developing nations.

About ASU Biodesign Institute:

The Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University delivers the future of nature-inspired scientific innovation today for the betterment of human health, community safety and global sustainability. Its transdisciplinary scientists are united in discovering bold solutions that directly benefit the health of our ecosystem. From individuals, to communities, to the planet, we focus on benefiting the overall health of life by turning our discoveries into technologies that are resilient, adaptive and deployable now and into the future.

Connect with ASU Biodesign:
Visit Biodesign’s website: https://biodesign.asu.edu/
Follow ASU Biodesign on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ASUBiodesign/
Follow ASU Biodesign on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/asubiodesign/

Connect with ASU Biodesign on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/asu-biodesign-institute/

Sweet revenge on cancer: How studying sugars may change the practice of oncology

For the culmination of the ASU Biodesign Institute’s 20th anniversary celebrations, the Arntzen Grand Challenges Lecture presented a panel of our founding leaders, including namesake Charles Arntzen, Kathleen Matt, and George Poste. The discussion, moderated by Joshua LaBaer, the institute's current executive director, offered insights into the institute's beginnings. Discussion included the initial support and funding from Arizona tax dollars and how the building was designed to foster a culture of interdisciplinary research.

About ASU Biodesign Institute:

The Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University delivers the future of nature-inspired scientific innovation today for the betterment of human health, community safety and global sustainability. Its transdisciplinary scientists are united in discovering bold solutions that directly benefit the health of our ecosystem. From individuals, to communities, to the planet, we focus on benefiting the overall health of life by turning our discoveries into technologies that are resilient, adaptive and deployable now and into the future.

Connect with ASU Biodesign:
Visit Biodesign’s website: https://biodesign.asu.edu/
Follow ASU Biodesign on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ASUBiodesign/
Follow ASU Biodesign on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/asubiodesign/
Connect with ASU Biodesign on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/asu-biodesign-institute/

Founders Panel: Early Biodesign Institute leaders

2023 Arntzen Grand Challenges speaker: Colin F. Camerer, CalTech
How does aversion to loss and our emotional response to losing explain aspects of consumer purchases, stock trading and sports? New evidence fuels an optimistic view in which measurements of brain activity can improve understanding of the biology that underlies economics.

The brain hates losing

With record heat waves and drought, we are experiencing not “the new normal,” but rather an ever-increasing stress and deterioration of our planet. Greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide are at the highest concentration found in the atmosphere for at least 2 million years, and our average temperature on earth is the warmest in at least 2,000 years. Learn about the changes that have occurred on Earth with special emphasis on the atmosphere, biosphere and oceans.

Jerald Schnoor’s research interests include phytoremediation, water sustainability and climate change. He is professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering and Occupational and Environmental Health; Allen S. Henry Chair in Engineering; co-director, Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research, at The University of Iowa.

The Arntzen Grand Challenges Lecture series is inspired by Charles Arntzen, founding director of the ASU Biodesign Institute. This lecture took place at the Walton Center for Planetary Health Auditorium at Arizona State University on Nov. 1. @Biodesign Institute

What are our prospects for transitioning out of the fossil-fuel age? Speaker: Jerald L. Schnoor

Upcoming events and holidays

Discovery Series

The Discovery Series, launched in 2013, brings eminent scientists, thought leaders and innovators from around the world to the Biodesign Institute to share their research expertise.

Discovery Series lectures and interactive discussions which follow exposes our faculty, staff and students to the latest developments in science, technology and medicine, keeping Biodesign Institute researchers abreast of current trends and breakthroughs. Discovery Series events also provide networking and collaborative research opportunities. Lectures are open to the community. Seating available on a first-come, first-served basis. Please join us!

Past lectures

This lecture, "Suicide Clusters: Spatial and Temporal Correlations and Their Environmental and Social Determinants in the United States," discusses suicide and the occurrence of suicides historically. This content could be sensitive to viewers. If someone you know is experiencing emotional distress, we encourage you to receive support through the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Call or text 988 or visit 988lifeline.org.

Suicide clusters, where multiple deaths occur within specific geographic areas and time periods at rates significantly higher than expected by chance, comprise an estimated 10-15 percent of suicide deaths. Clusters are becoming more concentrated and frequent across the US, resulting in suicide rates that are increasingly discordant between high and low suicide areas. They are also unequally distributed by age and birth cohort, with high-risk cohorts emerging as particularly vulnerable, and evidence is emerging that economic and social risk factors precipitate cluster formation. Prediction modeling and forecasting tools can be leveraged for early intervention, including during high-risk periods such as high-profile media reporting of suicide events. Emerging evidence is also developing to describe how internet-mediated exposure and AI-generated content may amplify traditional contagion pathways and create novel vectors for cluster formation. Taken together, the social and temporal landscape of suicide in the United States indicates that a spatial approach to suicide prevention and intervention is needed, moving beyond individual-risk factors to consider community-wide exposure and intervention.

Katherine Keyes is professor of Epidemiology at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. Her research focuses on psychiatric and substance use epidemiology across the lifecourse, including cross-generational cohort effects on substance use, mental health, and injury outcomes of suicide and overdose. She is particularly focused on methodological challenges in estimating age, period, and cohort effects, as well as using mathematical models to inform public health and policy interventions. She is the author of more than 500 peer-reviewed publications, and two textbooks published by Oxford University Press. Her work is funded by the National Institute of Drug Abuse, National Institution of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, National Institute of Mental Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Columbia University.

Discovery Lecture – Suicide Clusters presented by Katherine Keyes

Antibodies have been game-changers in medicine, helping treat many diseases, but they aren’t perfect. John Chaput, a scientist from UC Irvine, shares a groundbreaking solution: threomers. These synthetic molecules mimic antibodies but are more stable, easier to produce, and could work better in certain ways. Learn how his team uses cutting-edge chemistry and engineering to develop these innovative tools. Discover how threomers could transform the future of medicine by listening to his talk entitled, "A nucleic acid approach to antibody therapeutics using base-modified TNA aptamers (threomers)" at Arizona State University in October 2024.

Threomers: A new approach to antibody alternatives

Karen Szumlinski, PhD, Professor, Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology & Neuroscience Research Insitute at University of California, Santa Barbara. Recorded April 20, 2022.

Substance use disorder is a chronic, relapsing, neuropsychiatric condition that affects 2% of the world’s population. Substance use disorder is the leading risk factor of premature death globally. In addition to the deaths directly attributed to drug over-dose or fatal accidents, substance use increases the risk for many types of cancers, in addition to cardiovascular, metabolic, renal, and hepatic diseases, neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders, various neuropsychiatric conditions and suicide, accounting for 3-5% of the disease burden in many Western countries.

The work to be discussed in this talk seeks to identify the environmental, genetic, age- and sex-related determinants of alcohol, opioid, and psychostimulant use vulnerability, as well as their co-morbidity with affective, neurocognitive and eating disorders. Using rodent models, we have distinguished between the neurobiological impact of various addictive substances of relevance to the design of substance-specific therapy. We are exploring and validating the therapeutic potential of drugs already approved by the FDA for other uses for neuroimmune modulation as an approach to reduce drug-taking and craving.

The Discovery Series, launched in 2013, brings eminent scientists, thought leaders and innovators from around the world to the Biodesign Institute to share their research expertise. Discovery Series lectures and interactive discussions which follow exposes our faculty, staff and students to the latest developments in science, technology and medicine, keeping Biodesign researchers abreast of current trends and breakthroughs.

The Biodesign Institute at ASU delivers the future of nature-inspired scientific innovation today for the betterment of human health, community safety and global sustainability.

Substance use disorder: A global problem requiring an effective translational medicine approach

Herman Sintim, PhD, Drug Discovery Professor of Chemistry, Purdue University, West Lafayette. Recorded Oct. 21, 2021.

Herman Sintim studied medicinal chemistry at University College London (BSc), Organic Chemistry (DPhil) at the University of Oxford and performed postdoctoral work in organic chemistry and chemical biology at Oxford and Stanford Universities respectively. He currently serves on the editorial advisory board of ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters and as a Program Director at the National Science Foundation, Chemistry Division. Herman is a co-founder of KinaRx Inc., a start-up focused on developing novel agents against protein kinases, especially secondary mutated kinases that drive relapse in blood cancers.

The Discovery Series, launched in 2013, brings eminent scientists, thought leaders and innovators from around the world to the Biodesign Institute to share their research expertise. Discovery Series lectures and interactive discussions which follow exposes our faculty, staff and students to the latest developments in science, technology and medicine, keeping Biodesign researchers abreast of current trends and breakthroughs.

The Biodesign Institute at ASU delivers the future of nature-inspired scientific innovation today for the betterment of human health, community safety and global sustainability.

Cyclic dinucleotide signaling: New antibacterial and immunomodulatory therapeutics

Biomolecules are an important class of materials in the nanoscience community, allowing the development of precision nanoscale systems, permitting energy transfer over long distances and providing information about gene expression and cell regulation. These properties make biomolecules an ideal target for sensor applications.

In this talk, Joshua Hihath will discuss the strategy for advancing such bioelectronic systems. Specifically, he will review the development of a novel spectroscopic system that allows simultaneous characterization of the electrical, optical and mechanical properties of a single-molecule by combining its electronic measurements with single-molecule Raman spectroscopy permitting identification of COVID variants.

The Discovery Series, launched in 2013, brings eminent scientists, thought leaders and innovators from around the world to the Biodesign Institute to share their research expertise. Discovery Series lectures and interactive discussions which follow exposes our faculty, staff and students to the latest developments in science, technology and medicine, keeping Biodesign researchers abreast of current trends and breakthroughs.

The Biodesign Institute at ASU delivers the future of nature-inspired scientific innovation today for the betterment of human health, community safety and global sustainability.

Understanding the Electronic Properties of Biomolecules

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