Foundation Models Across Scales: From Cells to Health Systems

AI at VP&S. Nov 10-11, 2025 at the Vagelos Education Center. Schedule. Reproducing here because I am like this.

Day 1

9:00 am – 9:15 am - Opening Remarks

Speakers: Katrina Armstrong (Dean of the Faculties of Health Sciences and the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons
Executive Vice President for Health and Biomedical Sciences, Columbia University), Noémie Elhadad (Director, AI at VP&S Initiative; Chair and Associate Professor, Columbia Department of Biomedical Informatics)

9:15 am – 10:15 am - Lecture: Introduction to Foundation Models in Biology and Healthcare

Presenters: Matthew McDermott (Columbia Dept of Biomedical Informatics), Xi Fu (Columbia Dept of Biomedical Informatics, Program for Mathematical Genomics)

10:15 am – 11:45 am - Panel: Electronic Health Records: Harnessing foundation models to extract rich insights from structured and unstructured clinical data at scale

Speakers: Divya Gopinath (Layer Health), Matthew McDermott (Columbia Dept of Biomedical Informatics), Karthik Natarajan (Columbia Dept of Biomedical Informatics), Fei Wang (Weill Cornell Medicine)
Moderator: Shalmali Joshi (Columbia Dept of Biomedical Informatics)

11:50 am – 1:20 pm - Panel – Biology: Applying foundation models to genomics, proteomics, and molecular representations to accelerate biomedical discovery

Speakers: Mohammed AlQuraishi (Columbia Dept of Systems Biology, Program for Mathematical Genomics), Andrea Califano (Columbia Dept of Systems Biology, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative), Pete Clardy (Google), Xi Fu (Columbia Dept of Biomedical Informatics, Program for Mathematical Genomics)
Moderator: Raul Rabadan (Columbia Dept of Systems Biology, Program for Mathematical Genomics)

1:20 pm – 2:20 pm - Lunch

2:20 pm – 4:00 pm - Panel: Patient-Generated Data: Using models to interpret data from

wearables, mobile apps, and remote monitoring for continuous patient insights
Speakers: Noémie Elhadad (Columbia Dept of Biomedical Informatics), Luca Foschini (Sage Bionetworks), Joe Futoma (Apple), Xuhai “Orson” Xu (Columbia Dept of Biomedical Informatics)
Moderator: Lena Mamykina (Columbia Dept of Biomedical Informatics)

4:00 pm – 5:30 pm - Poster Session and Reception

Day 2

10:00 am – 10:30 am Keynote: Accelerating Foundation Models in Biology

NVIDIA’s role in enabling the ecosystem
Presenter: Roy Tal (NVIDIA)

10:30 am – 12:00 pm Panel: Translation to Real-World Applications: Bridging models to practice across clinical and biotech

Speakers: Kyunghyun Cho (Genentech/New York University), Sushravya Raghunath (NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital), Sujaya Srinivasan (Amazon Web Services), Roy Tal (NVIDIA)
Moderator: Timothy Crimmins (Columbia Univ Irving Medical Center)

12:00 pm – 1:00 pm Lunch

1:00 pm – 2:30 pm Panel – Human AI Alignment: Addressing robustness, fairness, explainability, and compliance in building responsible and trustworthy AI

Speakers: Gamze Gursoy (Columbia Dept of Biomedical Informatics), Shalmali Joshi (Columbia Dept of Biomedical Informatics), Smaranda Muresan (Department of Computer Science, Barnard College)
Moderator: Harry Reyes (Columbia Univ Irving Medical Center, Columbia Div of Infectious Diseases)

2:30 pm – 3:00 pm Keynote: Foundation Models at the Frontier: Power, Promise, and Possibilities

Speaker: Eric Horvitz (Chief Scientific Officer, Microsoft)

Day 1​

9:00 am – 9:15 am - Opening Remarks​

9:15 am – 10:15 am - Lecture: Introduction to Foundation Models in Biology and Healthcare​

10:15 am – 11:45 am - Panel: Electronic Health Records: Harnessing foundation models to extract rich insights from structured and unstructured clinical data at scale​

11:50 am – 1:20 pm - Panel – Biology: Applying foundation models to genomics, proteomics, and molecular representations to accelerate biomedical discovery​

1:20 pm – 2:20 pm - Lunch​

2:20 pm – 4:00 pm - Panel: Patient-Generated Data: Using models to interpret data from​

4:00 pm – 5:30 pm - Poster Session and Reception​

Day 2​

10:00 am – 10:30 am Keynote: Accelerating Foundation Models in Biology​

10:30 am – 12:00 pm Panel: Translation to Real-World Applications: Bridging models to practice across clinical and biotech​

12:00 pm – 1:00 pm Lunch​

1:00 pm – 2:30 pm Panel – Human AI Alignment: Addressing robustness, fairness, explainability, and compliance in building responsible and trustworthy AI​

2:30 pm – 3:00 pm Keynote: Foundation Models at the Frontier: Power, Promise, and Possibilities​

3:00 pm – 3:15 pm Closing remarks​