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At LABEST 2026, UCLA points the way to scientific innovation for the future
Scientists, investors, entrepreneurs and industry leaders convened on campus to explore how collaboration can turn life-changing discoveries into solutions
By Marivi Valcourt
This article was originally published by UCLA Newsroom
At a time when the worlds of science, medicine and technology seem to be moving faster than ever, UCLA’s Technology Development Group hosted a weeklong summit illustrating how the future of bioscience and medical technology depends not only on breakthrough discoveries but on the crucial work of translating those discoveries into solutions with real-world impact.
LABEST Week 2026 served as a powerful collaborative engine, drawing more than 1,200 local, national and international researchers, clinicians, students, startup founders, investors and industry leaders to campus. Over four days (May 18–21), the summit fostered connections aimed at accelerating the commercialization of academic research and bringing life-changing discoveries to patients and the public.
Woven throughout the week was a message about UCLA’s role as both a research powerhouse and a bridge between academia and industry.
“It is fitting that we are gathered here because universities like UCLA are the main institutions capable of pursuing the kind of bold and ambitious research that leads to national progress,” UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk told attendees during his remarks at the conference’s May 21 Bioscience Day gathering at the Luskin Conference Center. “That pursuit of knowledge provides the foundation for our society’s most transformative developments.”
That idea — that universities must increasingly serve as collaborative engines linking discovery, entrepreneurship and public benefit — shaped much of the summit’s programming. And it has been a cornerstone of the chancellor’s messaging, from his inauguration address and his May 26 State of the Campus presentation to UCLA’s Research and Innovation Blueprint, a major pillar of the campus’s One UCLA strategic vision that aims to deepen industry partnerships, diversify research funding and expand UCLA’s entrepreneurial infrastructure.
“Translation cannot happen in isolation,” Frenk said. “It requires connection between those who create knowledge and those who apply it. It requires partnership between those who dream and those who discover.”
LABEST: Creating a pipeline from discovery to impact
The summit kicked off May 18 with the Bioscience Talent Connection, a career-development event that brought together graduate students and doctoral candidates from UCLA and institutions like Cedars–Sinai, City of Hope and Cal State Los Angeles with employers and leaders from Southern California’s rapidly growing biotech ecosystem. The following day, the Primer Funders and Founders Mixer united 150 select researchers directly with venture capitalists and institutional funders at the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA.
Throughout the week, panels and demonstrations explored how emerging technologies are reshaping healthcare and bioscience.
Events on May 20, for instance, focused heavily on medical technology and the growing intersection of artificial intelligence and clinical care, as well as on next-generation medical hardware. Highlights included a showcase on bioengineered solutions in collaboration with the Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation and a keynote address by Guillermo Sapiro of Princeton University on how wearables like the Apple Watch serve as large-scale behavioral nudges for personalized medicine.
At Bioscience Day on May 21, Daniel M. Skovronsky, chief scientific and product officer for Eli Lilly and Company, delivered a keynote address on the company’s 30-year research-and-development journey to develop groundbreaking blood tests and therapeutics for Alzheimer’s disease. The UCLA Technology Development Group also premiered a new explainer video of their work, created in partnership with AI storytelling platform Nura Studios, and Associate Vice Chancellor Amir Naiberg, president and CEO of UCLA TDG, highlighted a series of UCLA-affiliated startup and commercialization success stories spanning biotech, medtech and environmental innovation. (View the full video playlist here.)
New for 2026, “Creativity Commons” explored the intersection of art and science, with speakers like Michael Beckerman, dean of the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music and Jeff Burke, associate dean at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, among others, leading thought-provoking discussions on how storytelling, music, AI, and creative business practices can tackle complex issues, from Alzheimer’s disease to extreme heat in Los Angeles and the sustainability crisis.
In addition, the summit featured live startup competitions, intellectual property workshops, investor sessions and poster presentations by more than 100 young researchers. The atmosphere frequently felt less like a conference than an innovation marketplace — one where scientific research, venture capital, medicine and entrepreneurship continuously overlapped.
How UCLA research powers progress
LABEST also emphasized the breadth of UCLA’s research ecosystem, showcasing faculty work in areas ranging from carbon management and surgical robotics to immunotherapy and metabolic disease, as well as the university’s growing influence in technology commercialization and startup creation.
According to venture capital estimates, UCLA TDG said, UCLA startups have generated nearly 10,000 jobs since 2020, while UCLA-licensed technologies have collectively raised more than $9.5 billion in funding. At the same time, UCLA and the TDG have received $460 million in licensing income, helped foster more than 100 startups, secured more than $345 million in industry-sponsored research funding and issued more than 2,000 patents worldwide.
Those figures underscore the emergence of UCLA as a major global center for medical technology, biotechnology and healthcare advancements and a pipeline for talent, Frenk said. After all, the chancellor noted, the greater L.A. region produces more graduates in the life sciences than anywhere else in the country, and more come from UCLA than any other university.
Perhaps nowhere is the university’s vision for the innovation future more ambitious than at the UCLA Research Park in West Los Angeles, where it plans to bring together scientists, startups, private companies and government agencies in a shared innovation ecosystem focused on immunology, quantum science, biotechnology and commercialization.
“For the first time, industry partners will work side by side with UCLA scientists and engineers,” Frenk said.
LABEST illustrated the increasingly interconnected future of research itself, one in which universities like UCLA not only to generate knowledge but, with the help of the local ecosystem, move discoveries rapidly into the world beyond campus.