#NCLifeSciencesWeek 2026

I only made it to two of the many #NCLifeSciencesWeek events across the state, but I came home grateful—and thinking about an opportunity.

Monday at the Charlotte Biomedical Sciences Symposium, I saw extraordinary science across AI, cancer, environmental health, neuroscience, therapeutics and more.

But I also noticed something that wasn’t on many of the posters: Patients as a source of knowledge while innovation is still being imagined. We talk a lot about patient engagement once research reaches clinical development. But some of the highest-leverage learning may happen much earlier. I found myself asking researchers: Have you talked with patients yet? What might they know that could change the question you’re asking—or what “useful” ultimately looks like?

I didn’t hear resistance. I heard interest. And I was delighted to learn that Pinku Mukherjee and OncoTab are already engaging patient communities to inform their work.

Thursday offered almost the mirror image.

At the ACRP RTP + Univo IRB OneVoice Symposium, the patient perspective was the agenda. We heard from the team building and the advocates contributing to Duke’s PACIR council. It was a joy to work with T.J. Sharpe on Lost in Translation: What Researchers Say and What Patients Hear on #WorldPatientSafetyDay—exploring the distance between what research teams intend to communicate, what participants may understand, and what they may do next. Thank you to Univo IRB, Linda Frew Shostak and the RTP ACRP chapter for creating the space.

And across both events, I kept seeing North Carolina’s clinical research students and faculty showing up. Workforce development becomes much less abstract when the next generation is already in the room.

My question coming out of the week:

How do we make learning with and from patients practical enough to start in discovery—not after the important questions have already been decided?

#ClinicalResearch #PatientExperience #LifeSciences #NCLifeSciencesWeek #PatientSafetyBeginsWithCommunication #NoPatientReportLeftBehind #AskPatients #UNCC #UNC #Duke #DCI #UNCW #CampbellUniversity #NCState #WakeForest #SACR