Keynote Speaker – Douglas Phanstiel, PhD

Portrait of Douglas Phanstiel

“Decoding and recoding the genome: Innovative approaches to the challenges of aging, cancer, and the future of food”

Hello NCAS members! I am happy to share more information about the 2026 Annual Meeting Keynote Speaker Douglas Phanstiel. He is currently an Associate Professor of Cell Biology & Physiology in the Thurston Arthritis Research Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I wanted to learn more about Doug’s career trajectory since every scientist’s path looks a little different. Although his research team has been incredibly successful since he started at UNC, he “actually wasn’t interested in biology or science at all in high school” and “was pretty undecided on a major and initially leaned toward psychology.” Doug’s interest in STEM fields was sparked in a required organic chemistry class!

After college, Doug worked for a small biotech company in San Diego for a few years. He enjoyed the work, but didn’t feel a connection to it or any ownership of his projects as a lab technician. So he moved to the Czech Republic and taught English for a year, which provided him the space to really reflect on what he wanted to do next. This led him to Seattle, where he worked at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center running mass spectrometers to do proteomics work aimed at detecting cancer biomarkers. This was Doug’s first real exposure to academic research and he “quickly fell in love with the feeling of being at the edge of human knowledge”. He went to graduate school at the University of Wisconsin in a lab that was building the next generation of mass spectrometers. His research focused on using mass spectrometry to study induced pluripotent stem cells, which was a recent innovation in the field. To analyze the data, he had to learn how to program, and that inspired Doug to pursue a postdoc focused on bioinformatics. In his postdoc at Stanford, Doug developed new software for genomic analysis and visualization, and applied it to study how DNA folding influences gene transcription during development. This created the foundation for his current research at UNC Chapel Hill. One of Doug’s current projects involves using CRISPR technology and cow stem cells to create cultivated meat that is safe for consumption by the roughly half a million Americans living with mammalian meat allergies. When asked about this project, Doug said that he loves it because “it’s so different from our other work and because it has the potential to directly solve an emerging public health issue”. He shared that it excites him “that we get to learn things no one has ever known before. The possibility that these discoveries can one day improve human health and well-being is incredibly motivating”.

When I asked Doug if he had any pieces of advice that he wishes he had received as an undergraduate, he emphasized that everyone’s path to success is different. He admitted he “was not the smartest or best student. Many concepts were difficult for me at first, and my GPA was never particularly high”. He shared that he didn’t think he was smart enough for graduate school, and “certainly never imagined I could one day be a professor”. However, through his own professional development and mentoring students, he realized “that everyone has different strengths, and leaning into those strengths can lead to incredible success”. He also added that “people whose strengths differ from standard academic metrics (like grades) often thrive because their unique perspectives, experiences, and approaches help them see problems in ways others might miss”. All of us at NCAS are looking forward to hearing more from Dr. Phanstiel at the Annual Meeting about his ongoing projects and personal journey towards science.

-Andrea Perreault, PhD, Elon University

Tentative Schedule

Presentation and workshop locations will be posted at the conference.

Friday April 24, 2025

  • 1:00 – 2:00 p.m. – Finance Committee Meeting (Private)
  • 2:00 – 5:00 p.m. – Board Meeting (Private)
  • 5:00 – 6:00 p.m. – Registration and Poster Setup (Lakeside Terrace, 2nd floor Moseley)
  • 5:30 – 6:00 p.m. – Poster Judges Meeting (Private)
  • 6:00 – 7:30 p.m. – Poster Session, Welcoming Remarks, Reception with Heavy Hors d’oeuvres (Lakeside Terrace, 2nd floor Moseley)

Saturday April 25, 2025

  • 7:30 – 8:30 a.m. – Registration and Exhibit Setup (Koury Business Center Lobby)
  • 8:00 – 8:30 a.m. – Judges and Session Chairs Meeting (Private)
  • 8:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. – Exhibits from Meeting Sponsors (Koury Business Center Lobby)
  • 8:30 – 9:45 a.m. – Oral Presentations, Session 1
    • Behavioral Sciences
    • Biotechnology
    • Botany/Zoology/Ecology
    • Chemistry
    • Cell & Developmental Biology
    • Microbiology
    • Computer Science/Bioinformatics
    • Environmental Science
  • 10:00 – 11:15 a.m. – Oral Presentations, Session 2
    • Engineering
    • Geosciences
    • Health Sciences
    • Molecular Biology
    • Physics
    • Science Education
    • Zoology
  • 11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. – Welcoming Remarks, Keynote Speaker (Koury Business Center, LaRose Digital Theater)
  • 12:45 – 2:00 p.m. – Lunch at Dining Halls
  • 1:30 – 2:00 p.m. – Judges Meeting (Private)
  • 2:15 – 3:15 p.m. – Workshops
    • Science and Advocacy
    • Creative Data Visualization
    • Scientist Panel
  • 3:30 – 4:15 p.m. – Award Ceremony and Closing (Koury Business Center, LaRose Digital Theater)
  • 4:15 – 5:15 p.m. – NCAS and CANCAS Business Meetings (Private)
  • 5:15 – 5:45 p.m. – NCAS Board of Directors Meeting (Private)