March 30, 2026
Story by Ben Stewart; photos by Ben Stewart, Mackenzie Lynch and Jaime Basnett
Researchers from the University of Missouri in Columbia joined colleagues from across the University of Missouri System at the Havener Center in Rolla, Missouri, to share the latest developments from projects that could improve health outcomes for the state and beyond.
Fifty-six poster presenters and 93 total participants represented Mizzou at the third annual NextGen Pathways Symposium on March 12 and 13, hosted this year by the Missouri University of Science and Technology. The delegation included three researchers who delivered talks from the main stage: R. Scott Rector, Curators’ Distinguished Professor of nutrition and exercise physiology; Bret Ulery, associate professor of chemical and biomedical engineering; and Sandy Saunders, NextGen Precision Health Fellow in pathobiology and integrative biomedical sciences.
For faculty members and postdoctoral researchers like these – along with graduate students, lab and campus resource staff, clinicians, and even a few undergraduates – the Pathways event is designed to raise the visibility of promising ideas. It’s also intended to connect teams with complementary skillsets and accelerate progress toward solutions for challenges like cancer, rare disease, cardiovascular and metabolic disorders, Alzheimer’s disease, infertility and other health issues.
Dave Arnold, executive director of the NextGen Precision Health initiative, offers welcome remarks.
“It’s always been our team’s goal to try to bring people together,” said Dave Arnold, executive director of the NextGen Precision Health initiative. “This is my favorite meeting of the year. I feel like it’s a retreat for our labs to come together and meet people across the state.”
In total, 221 researchers attended to learn from colleagues’ successes and to meet with industry and community partners to better understand the nuances of patients’ needs. They brought expertise from a range of fields – artificial intelligence, clinical care, basic science, population health, intellectual property – and explored topics as diverse as biomaterials for bone and tissue regrowth, the ethics of precision health, the role of mitochondria in liver disease, the challenges of scaling eyecare solutions around the world, leveraging explainable AI, and using new preclinical models to understand cellular development.
“The things we get to do, the questions we get to ask; it really is a privilege,” Arnold said. “So it’s our responsibility to share that work with the world.”
Keynote speaker and former astronaut Sandra Magnus poses with four young people sporting NASA gear who traveled to Rolla just to meet her.
This year’s keynote speaker was Missouri S&T alumna Sandra Magnus, a NASA Astronaut Hall of Fame inductee in 2022 and former executive director of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the leading professional organization for the aerospace industry. In keeping with the broad theme of interdisciplinary science, her talk focused on “Curiosity-Driven Innovation in a Complex World” and the importance of leadership and clear communication for the success of ambitious projects like the International Space Station.
NextGen Precision Health Postdoctoral Fellow Spencer Upton from psychological sciences asks a question during a workshop presentation.
On average in the U.S., it takes 14 years for a new treatment to make it from the discovery phase to patients. That long translation process involves a series of experts from different domains. NextGen’s goal is to help those teams coordinate from the very beginning to shorten their path to a new drug, device or other innovation. Programs like the NextGen’s Pathways Symposium, the Discovery Series of community science talks, and the NextGen Postdoctoral Fellowship are designed to contribute to that effort.
Next year, Pathways will be held at Mizzou.
NextGen Precision Health
Highlighting the promise of personalized health care and the impact of large-scale interdisciplinary collaboration, the UM System’s NextGen Precision Health initiative is bringing together innovators from across the system’s four research universities, MU Health Care and industry partners in pursuit of life-changing precision health advancements. It’s a collaborative effort to leverage the strengths of the entire UM System toward a better future for Missouri’s health. The initiative is anchored at the Roy Blunt NextGen Precision Health building, a state-of-the-art research facility which is expanding collaboration among researchers, clinicians and industry partners.