2026 News

From Renaissance to Research: Columbia’s DREAM-High Program Brings Cancer Genomics Research to High School Students

When Diana Murray first started working with two high school students on an online summer cancer systems biology course in 2018, she never imagined that the initiative, now called DREAM-High, would snowball to 56 participants by 2026. “The class started as a consolation prize for high school students who didn’t get selected for a different program funded by the Palazzo Strozzi Foundation,” shares Murray, who in addition to being a computational systems biologist is also the Program Director of Research and Education at Columbia University. And she proceeds to explain.

Not many American academic institutions can boast a connection to Palazzo Strozzi, a 14th century masterpiece of Renaissance architecture and a foundation that supports it, but Columbia University’s Department of Systems Biology is a special case. Andrea Califano, who is a Professor of Chemical and Systems Biology and one of the department cofounders and chairmen, is originally from Italy. “He knows people from the Palazzo Strozzi Foundation USA,” explains Murray. Established in 2010, the Foundation works to introduce American students to Italian culture, arts and history. Every year, the Foundation offers the High School Renaissance Award to 18 students to spend a month in Italy studying the renaissance, the culture and the arts.

About 500 students apply, and those who aren’t selected are understandably disappointed. To offer them an alternative, the program organizers had asked Califano whether Columbia University could create some form of a science program so that students who weren’t chosen to go, could apply for it. Califano said yes.

Back in 2018, Columbia participated in an undergraduate cancer biology course funded by the National Institute of Health’s Cancer Systems Biology Consortium (CSBC). “That undergraduate course was very successful, but then two of my high school students who weren’t chosen to go to Italy took it and they loved it!” Murray says. “So we decided to make this course accessible to other high school students. The undergraduate course was called Mini-DREAM, so we named the high school course DREAM-High.”

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Harris Wang, PhD among Columbia Scientists in PRISM program

Columbia University, in partnership with the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), part of the State University of New York (SUNY), has received an $11.5 million grant from the Bezos Earth Fund, a $10 billion initiative by Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos to fund climate and nature programming. Columbia and FIT will use the grant to advance their PRISM platform, a framework to develop a high-performance textile fiber grown by bacteria fed on agricultural waste, which will require no land, be compostable at the end-of-life, and produce no microplastic pollution.

PRISM, which stands for Precision, Regenerative, Intelligent, Scalable Materials, is a five-year research program that will address key scientific and technical bottlenecks in control, predictability, and scalability in the production of bacterial cellulose fiber, a biomaterial that can match the strength and elasticity of synthetic fibers like polyester but will also be compostable. Using bioengineering, synthetic biology, theory, machine learning, data science, and textile science, PRISM is focused on materials innovation for the fashion industry and beyond.

Please access full article here. 

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Harris Wang, PhD Appointed Chair of Systems Biology

Harris Wang, PhD, professor of systems biology, pathology & cell biology, and biomedical engineering, has been appointed chair of the Department of Systems Biology in the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons.

Dr. Wang has served as interim chair of Systems Biology since September 2023 and has fostered the continued growth and impact of Systems Biology, helping to cement its standing as one of the leading departments of its kind nationwide. Dr. Wang joined Columbia in 2013 as a founding faculty member of the department.  

Widely recognized for his pioneering work in synthetic biology, Dr. Wang focuses on advancing next-generation microbiome and cellular therapeutics through systems and synthetic biology approaches. Using advanced genome engineering, gene synthesis, and next-generation sequencing technologies, his research examines how genomes are shaped by environmental forces and evolve over time, while developing innovative tools to engineer microbial systems and mammalian cells to address critical challenges in health, energy, and the environment. His work has been especially influential in the spatial mapping and precision editing of the gut microbiome, as well as in the use of CRISPR-based technologies to track and record transient cellular processes. Dr. Wang joined Columbia from Harvard University, where he served as an instructor in systems biology, and where he invented the first automated and multiplexed genome engineering platform. 

A Biohub investigator and a fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, Dr. Wang is the recipient of numerous accolades. He was named a Schaefer Research Scholar at VP&S and received the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science, the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, and the NSF CAREER Award. Dr. Wang cares deeply about training the next generation of scientists, and has advised and mentored numerous postdocs, graduate, and undergraduate students. 

Dr. Wang has cofounded two companies and serves on the scientific advisory boards of numerous others in the areas of CRISPR, biosecurity, microbiome, intestinal health, and gene therapy. He received a PhD in biophysics and medical engineering medical physics from Harvard University and double BS degrees in applied mathematics and physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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