Schedule

Every day of PEBBLE BioFusion 2026, in order, with the talks given and every file that goes with them. Week one asks five questions. Week two spends the hours on student work instead.

11 days · 36 talks · 63 downloadable files

Week one

Ignition: five questions

Each day opens a live question in quantitative biology, with research talks in the morning and a hands-on studio in the afternoon.

07.25
Saturday
Q1: Cellular Information Processing

Morning talks on one question, an afternoon Methods Studio, and the AI-native night.

Lecture Control theory Fangzhou Xiao
No materials posted.
Lecture Protein computation Zibo Chen
No materials posted.
Lecture Probabilistic reasoning in cells Zitong (Jerry) Wang
No materials posted.
Research method A scientific story that spreads like a virus Fangzhou Xiao
Research method From a story to a publishable paper: A deep dive in AI-native scientific research Fangzhou Xiao
Tutorial Biocircuits 101 Sijie Li
Tutorial Information processing in living systems Haoming Luo, Yiping Ma, Yanzhang Jiang
Tutorial A minimal synthetic cell Xinwen Fan
07.26
Sunday
Q2: Complex Cellular Behaviors

Three ways to model cellular behavior this morning, hands-on methods this afternoon, and a Questions Night to meet your people.

Lecture Mechanism-driven single-cell modelling Yuhao Chen
No materials posted.
Lecture Data-driven approaches Tailin Wu
No materials posted.
Lecture Multiscale modelling Zhennan Zhou
No materials posted.
Tutorial High-dimensional biological data Xinyu Wang
Tutorial Dynamics from RNA splicing Qinguo Liu
Tutorial Neural systems across scales Qianrui Wang, Jiaqi Tu
Research method Commandments of research with AI Fangzhou Xiao
07.27
Monday
Q3: Noise, Fluctuation & Diversity

Three takes on randomness in cells this morning, hands-on methods this afternoon, and a Questions Night.

Lecture Stochasticity at the core Hong Qian
No materials posted.
Lecture Single-cell trajectories Yihan Wan
No materials posted.
Tutorial Gillespie simulation Wenqin Zhou
Tutorial Agent-based models Ruoqing Zhang
Tutorial Membrane physics Jiahao Chen
Tutorial The methylation clock Yihao Lin
07.28
Tuesday
Q4: Aging, Damage & Asymmetry

Three views on damage and aging this morning, a guest lecture opening a longer afternoon, and a Questions Night.

Lecture Single-cell damage Rui Fang
No materials posted.
Lecture Damage & asymmetric division Yifan Yang
No materials posted.
Lecture Lineage & inheritance Shouwen Wang
No materials posted.
Lecture Cellular information processing Fan Jin
No materials posted.
Tutorial Asymmetric damage & lifespan Hongying Lin
Tutorial Saturating-removal models of aging Yihang Ding
07.29
Wednesday
Q5: Spatial Organization & Multicellularity

From single cells to tissues this morning, hands-on methods this afternoon, and the last Questions Night.

Lecture Adaptive niche construction in microbes Zhiyuan Li
No materials posted.
Lecture Cell fate decisions in development Zhiyuan Li
No materials posted.
Lecture Mechanics & Morphogenesis Hanqin Guo
No materials posted.
Tutorial Machine learning for omics data integration Lei Hui, Qinyu Cai
Tutorial Turing Patterns: How does development take shape? Xiaowen Zhang
Week two

Synthesis: research sprint

Expert talk drops away almost entirely. Students work on their own questions, and the hours go to producing something.

07.30
Thursday
Project Kickstart

Teams and projects lock in. Two guests bracket the day, and you commit to the question you will spend the sprint on.

Lecture Introduction: Network science in biology Xin-Ya Zhang
No materials posted.
Lecture Protein language models Sergei Maslov
No materials posted.
07.31
Friday
Research Sprint: Work

The sprint begins in earnest: a morning panel and project clinics, heads-down group work, and a nightly check-in with your TA.

Panel, project clinics and group work. No lecture materials from this day.
08.01
Saturday
Recharge: Rest Day

No sessions today. Rest, explore Hangzhou, and come back ready for the final push.

Rest day. No sessions scheduled.
08.02
Sunday
Research Sprint: Analysis

Back to the sprint: morning panel and project clinics, then deep work on analysis, and the nightly check-in.

Lecture Noise suppression & large deviation Jiawei Yan
No materials posted.
08.03
Monday
Research Sprint: Polish

A guest talk to open, then polish everything: results, figures, and the story. Manuscript and poster due by end of day.

Lecture Toward an interpretable virtual cell model Weixu Wang
No materials posted.
Finale

Demo day

Final presentation. Team talks in the morning, posters after lunch, then the closing ceremony.

08.04
Tuesday
Final Presentation

The finale: team talks in the morning, posters after lunch, then the closing ceremony and checkout.

Group presentations, poster session and closing ceremony. What the teams produced is on the Student work page.