Speaker: Wayne Pan, MD, PhD, MBA, Medical Director - Medical Sciences, BioMarin Pharmaceutical, Inc.

This is a unique point in time for healthcare. After decades of dedicated and dogged research by the scientific and medical communities, we are now seeing FDA approvals of gene therapies which can ease or cure a myriad of debilitating diseases. While biopharma companies seek to recoup their R&D costs, the market will struggle to price these treatments, particularly those developed for small and very targeted patient populations. Who and what will determine the cost to the patient?

Established in 1985 as one of the original supercomputer centers funded by the National Science Foundation, the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) has been an integral part of the supercomputing landscape for almost 35 years. SDSC has been there from the early days of purpose-built supercomputers to the era of “commodity clusters” to the recent trend in heterogeneous architectures (CPUs, GPUs, FPGAs). Along the way, there has been a shift in focus from massively parallel modeling & simulation to big data analytics and the convergence of AI and High Performance Computing. Join us for history, highlighted developments, trends in supercomputing for science, and a review of how SDSC collaborates with industry to benefit both science and commerce.

Speaker: Nolan Sigal, MD, PhD, Partner, Satter Investment Management

How do we end up doing the work that we do? And why? How do we navigate the myriad of opportunities, challenges, and variables? It seems that one’s path can be both planned and unplanned. Being in an environment where one is surrounded by bright and curious minds, as well as new and traditional technologies, can boggle the mind. How do we choose among the myriad possibilities available? How is one’s career impacted when there is ample hunger, risk, movement, and symbiosis nearby? While education surely opens doors, it is still difficult, particularly at the beginning of one’s career, to predict a path. Since 1980, when Dr. Sigal completed his studies, his dynamic work path has included academia, big pharma, and biotech start-ups.