Celebrating the diversity of the natural world

Talks from Stowers Investigators and guest speakers reflected the breadth and depth of the Institute’s research. Presentations highlighted landmark findings from the past quarter century, including the Gerton Lab’s discovery of a new chromosome structure and fusion event with implications for infertility and Down syndrome and the Sankari Lab’s exploration of how plant-microbe symbioses shape life and the impact of the lab’s findings on food and agriculture.

Investigator Matt Gibson, Ph.D., shared research on cnidarians (ancient marine organisms that include sea anemones, jellyfish, and coral) in a talk titled “The aliens among us.” These seemingly otherworldly creatures help us understand body structure and development, he said, and growing coral in the Institute’s labs could reveal potential approaches for protecting reefs in a changing climate. Gibson is one of just a few teams in the world successfully spawning coral in a laboratory.

Guest speaker Nipam Patel, Ph.D., Director of the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachussetts, discussed butterflies as living canvases, demonstrating how the evolution of new colors and patterns can illuminate shared principles of development and evolution across species.

Additional speakers included Mike Levine, Ph.D., and Corina Tarnita, Ph.D., both from Princeton University, and Olivier Pourquié, Ph.D., from Harvard University.

A unique model 

“In asset management, compounding is our language. The most beautiful thing Jim and Virginia built here at Stowers is a way to compound knowledge,” Jonathan Thomas, Chairman and CEO of the Stowers Institute and Chairman, President, and CEO of American Century Investments, said in his opening remarks. “Like compound interest, each discovery reinvests in the next — each insight builds something bigger.”

Speakers and panelists emphasized how the Institute’s unique model — combining stable, long-term funding with state-of-the-art Technology Centers and a culture of scientific freedom — enables high-risk, high-reward science that would be difficult to pursue elsewhere.

“Fundamental research often begins far from the clinic, but it is where many of tomorrow’s medical breakthroughs will originate,” said Kausik Si, Ph.D., Scientific Director of the Stowers Institute. “This event underscored how discoveries in basic biology can eventually transform our understanding of disease.”

Communicating science

The symposium also featured a conversation with science journalist and author Carl Zimmer of The New York Times, who reflected on the importance of telling stories about biology and the people behind it. Zimmer discussed his book, Air-Borne, which traces how scientists uncovered the truth about airborne pathogens and what that means for how diseases spread and the invisible threats in the air around us.

In a panel discussion with the day’s speakers, Zimmer explored how advances in genomics, developmental biology, and neuroscience are reshaping the way we understand ourselves, underscoring a central theme: When we make complex science clear and human, it can change how people think, act, and prepare for the future.

Honoring our founders and the next 25 Years

The 25th Anniversary Symposium most notably paid tribute to the Institute’s founders, Jim and Virginia Stowers, whose entrepreneurial success and philanthropic vision created a new model for supporting biomedical research. Through a perpetual funding mechanism linked to annual dividends from American Century Investments, the Institute has the stability to invest in long-term projects, build world-class Technology Centers, and give scientists the freedom to follow their curiosity.

“What makes this place truly distinctive is not just its resources, but its philosophy,” added Sánchez Alvarado. “We are structured to give scientists the freedom to follow their curiosity wherever it leads. That freedom has already led to transformative discoveries, and it is the foundation of our next 25 years.”

In between sessions, attendees visited exhibits, met scientists, and learned more about the organisms that make Stowers research distinctive — from planarians that regenerate their bodies to zebrafish and other species that challenge assumptions about development, regeneration, and more.

The day concluded with a reception that brought together researchers, staff, alumni, and supporters to celebrate how far the Institute has come and to imagine what the next 25 years might hold.  Attendees filled the reception with conversations full of hope for the future of research, echoing Jim Stowers' favorite saying, "The best is yet to be."