2026 Karger Medal Lecture and Celebration

The 2026 Barry L. Karger Medal in Bioanalytical Chemistry Celebration honors 2026 Karger Medal awardee Dr. Ron Hereen whose work has transformed how we visualize and understand molecular patterns in health and disease, enabling insights from the molecular level to clinical applications in pathology and surgery.  

Join us for this special event where you’ll hear about exciting research developments research happening in separation science, protein analysis, DNAs sequencing, and proteomics and connect with Barnett members and alumni, peers, and industry leaders.  

Speakers

• 

  Ron Hereen, PhD

  Founding Director
  Maastricht Multimodal Molecular Imaging Institute

  Dr. Ron Heeren is internationally recognized for his pioneering work in mass spectrometry–based molecular imaging. His research has transformed how we visualize and understand molecular patterns in health and disease, enabling insights from the molecular level to clinical applications in pathology and surgery.

• 

  Brian Hoffman, PhD

  Director, Protein Sciences and Mass Spectrometry Services
  The Jackson Laboratory

  A research-teacher scholar, Dr. Brian Hoffman leads collaborative, multidisciplinary programs focused on uncovering mechanisms underlying impaired cardiovascular function and regeneration, with particular emphasis on type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). His work integrates advanced mass spectrometry, protein chemistry, and antibody technologies to support innovative, highly collaborative research across multiple biological systems.

• 

  James Monaghan, PhD

  Professor and Chair, Biology
  Northeastern University

  Dr. James Monaghan's research uses the axolotl salamander to investigate the cellular and molecular basis of complex tissue regeneration. Focusing on limb, nervous system, and spinal cord regeneration, his lab studies how interactions between organ systems drive repair and regrowth, with the goal of uncovering principles applicable to human regenerative medicine. He is a professor and chair of the Department of Biology at Northeastern University and the director of the Institute for Chemical Imaging of Living Systems.

• 

  Olga Vitek, PhD

  Director, Barnett Institute, Raymond Bradford Bradstreet Professor
  Northeastern University

  Dr. Olga Vitek's research lies at the intersection of statistical science, machine learning, and mass spectrometry, with the goal of advancing quantitative, large-scale investigations of biological systems. Her lab develops methods for experimental design, analyte detection, and causal and counterfactual inference, along with widely used open-source tools such as MSstats and Cardinal. A leader in computational proteomics education, she is the lead organizer of the May Institute on Computation and Statistics for Mass Spectrometry and Proteomics and a recipient of numerous honors, including the NSF CAREER Award and the Chan Zuckerberg Essential Open Source Software for Science Award.