


Noubar Afeyan, PhD
Co-Founder & Chairman, Moderna • Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Flagship Pioneering

























































































Noubar Afeyan, PhD
Co-Founder & Chairman, Moderna • Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Flagship Pioneering



Canan Dagdeviren, PhD
LG Career Development Professor in Media Arts and Sciences, MIT Media Lab

























































































Canan Dagdeviren, PhD
LG Career Development Professor in Media Arts and Sciences, MIT Media Lab
Canan Dagdeviren is the LG Career Development Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at MIT Media Lab, where she leads the Conformable Decoders research group. The group aims to convert the patterns of nature and the human body into beneficial signals and energy.
Dagdeviren earned her Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she focused on exploring patterning techniques and creating piezoelectric biomedical systems. Her collective Ph.D. research involved flexible mechanical energy harvesters, multi-functional cardiac vessel stents, wearable blood pressure sensors, and stretchable skin modulus sensing bio-patches.
As a Junior Fellow of the Society of Fellows at Harvard University, she conducted her postdoctoral research at the MIT David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. Here, she designed and fabricated multi-functional, minimally invasive brain probes that can simultaneously deliver drugs on demand and electrically modulate neural activity precisely and selectively for the treatment of neurological disorders, such as Parkinson’s disease.
Dagdeviren’s work has been featured in many media outlets, including TIME, Washington Post, Smithsonian Magazine, Popular Mechanics, CBS News, BBC News and Physics World. In 2015, MIT Technology Review named her among the "Top 35 Innovators Under 35" and Forbes selected her as one of the "Top 30 Under 30 in Science". Recently, Dagdeviren has been named as a Spotlight Health Scholar by Aspen Institute and World #1 in Medical Innovation Category of Ten Outstanding Young Persons of the World (TOYP) by Junior Chamber International. In 2016, Dr. Dagdeviren was awarded the Science & Sci Life Prize for Young Scientists in Translational Medicine Category and invited to attend Nobel Prize Ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden. Recently, Dr. Dagdeviren has been named as 2017 Innovation and Technology Delegate by the American Academy of Achievement. In 2019 Dr. Dagdeviren was among 87 of the nation’s brightest young engineers who have been selected to take part in the National Academy of Engineering’s (NAE) 25th annual U.S. Frontiers of Engineering (USFOE) symposium, hosted by Boeing in Charleston, South Carolina.
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Dagdeviren earned her Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she focused on exploring patterning techniques and creating piezoelectric biomedical systems. Her collective Ph.D. research involved flexible mechanical energy harvesters, multi-functional cardiac vessel stents, wearable blood pressure sensors, and stretchable skin modulus sensing bio-patches.
As a Junior Fellow of the Society of Fellows at Harvard University, she conducted her postdoctoral research at the MIT David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. Here, she designed and fabricated multi-functional, minimally invasive brain probes that can simultaneously deliver drugs on demand and electrically modulate neural activity precisely and selectively for the treatment of neurological disorders, such as Parkinson’s disease.
Dagdeviren’s work has been featured in many media outlets, including TIME, Washington Post, Smithsonian Magazine, Popular Mechanics, CBS News, BBC News and Physics World. In 2015, MIT Technology Review named her among the "Top 35 Innovators Under 35" and Forbes selected her as one of the "Top 30 Under 30 in Science". Recently, Dagdeviren has been named as a Spotlight Health Scholar by Aspen Institute and World #1 in Medical Innovation Category of Ten Outstanding Young Persons of the World (TOYP) by Junior Chamber International. In 2016, Dr. Dagdeviren was awarded the Science & Sci Life Prize for Young Scientists in Translational Medicine Category and invited to attend Nobel Prize Ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden. Recently, Dr. Dagdeviren has been named as 2017 Innovation and Technology Delegate by the American Academy of Achievement. In 2019 Dr. Dagdeviren was among 87 of the nation’s brightest young engineers who have been selected to take part in the National Academy of Engineering’s (NAE) 25th annual U.S. Frontiers of Engineering (USFOE) symposium, hosted by Boeing in Charleston, South Carolina.
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David Fajgenbaum, MD, MBA, MSc
Assistant Professor of Medicine, Translational Medicine & Human Genetics, University of Pennsylvania

























































































David Fajgenbaum, MD, MBA, MSc
Assistant Professor of Medicine, Translational Medicine & Human Genetics, University of Pennsylvania
David Fajgenbaum, MD, MBA, MSc, is a physician-scientist at the University of Pennsylvania and national bestselling author of Chasing My Cure. After nearly dying five times, Fajgenbaum discovered a treatment that is saving his life and others. Now, he is advancing drug repurposing for COVID-19 and other diseases through the Center for Cytokine Storm Treatment & Laboratory and CURE Drug Repurposing Collaboratory.



Marc Hodosh
Founder & Co-Host, LIFE ITSELF

























































































Marc Hodosh
Founder & Co-Host, LIFE ITSELF
Marc Hodosh is Founder and Co-Host of LIFE ITSELF, a new multi-disciplinary health gathering, with Dr. Sanjay Gupta and in partnership with CNN.
Previously, Marc co-created and hosted TEDMED, the health and medical version of the TED Conference. After selling TEDMED he continued to focus on the intersection of health innovations and media, with a particular focus on human aging and longevity.
Prior, Marc led the XPRIZE for Genomics, a $10 million competition to inspire rapid and cost effective genome sequencing technology, which followed the successful $10 million Ansari Space XPRIZE.
He has been a consultant to inventor Dean Kamen at DEKA Research & Development and also chaired Dean's FIRST Robotics competition within the Boston region — a non-profit foundation which inspires high school students to pursue careers in science and technology.
Additionally, Marc founded and sold ID One, specializing in facial recognition technology for the U.S. military and intelligence communities. Earlier he led business development at Viisage Technology, a biometric and secure ID company.
Marc became interested in health and medicine during high school and college, while volunteering as an EMT (Emergency Medical Technician) with the local ambulance services, as well as through his experiences working in a hospital emergency room. After a year at Boston University Medical School, he decided to pursue business and entrepreneurial endeavors by inventing and patenting consumer products, which were distributed through Bed Bath & Beyond, QVC television, Toys-R-Us, and others.
Previously, Marc co-created and hosted TEDMED, the health and medical version of the TED Conference. After selling TEDMED he continued to focus on the intersection of health innovations and media, with a particular focus on human aging and longevity.
Prior, Marc led the XPRIZE for Genomics, a $10 million competition to inspire rapid and cost effective genome sequencing technology, which followed the successful $10 million Ansari Space XPRIZE.
He has been a consultant to inventor Dean Kamen at DEKA Research & Development and also chaired Dean's FIRST Robotics competition within the Boston region — a non-profit foundation which inspires high school students to pursue careers in science and technology.
Additionally, Marc founded and sold ID One, specializing in facial recognition technology for the U.S. military and intelligence communities. Earlier he led business development at Viisage Technology, a biometric and secure ID company.
Marc became interested in health and medicine during high school and college, while volunteering as an EMT (Emergency Medical Technician) with the local ambulance services, as well as through his experiences working in a hospital emergency room. After a year at Boston University Medical School, he decided to pursue business and entrepreneurial endeavors by inventing and patenting consumer products, which were distributed through Bed Bath & Beyond, QVC television, Toys-R-Us, and others.