Harvard University

Jacksonville, Fla. – September 13, 2026 -- Alan Alwakeel, a recent graduate of Stanton College Preparatory School, received a $3,000 Humane Science Award from the National Anti-Vivisection Society (NAVS) for an AI-powered cancer therapy simulation platform that eliminates the need for animal testing.

Platform simulates cancer treatment efficacy without animal trials

Alwakeel's project, "The Virtual Cell 2.0: Expanding Precision and Personalized Cancer Therapy Through AI-Powered Simulation," applies computational frameworks to evaluate potential cancer treatment outcomes. The tool aims to accelerate how new therapies are developed, tested and deployed by replacing traditional animal-based testing methods with data-driven simulation.

New Haven, Connecticut – September 07, 2026 -- Yale School of Medicine (YSM) has secured close to $25 million in research funding from the Aligning Research to Impact Autism (ARIA) program, part of ARIA's Human Neurodevelopment Research Centers initiative. The funding will support efforts to build a foundational atlas and model of human brain development, pinpointing when autism-related developmental differences first emerge and how they diverge from typical developmental trajectories.

NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- Aug. 31, 2026 -- Yale School of Medicine has secured a nearly $25 million grant from the Aligning Research to Impact Autism (ARIA) initiative to build the first high-resolution map of the developing human brain and pinpoint where autism diverges from typical neural development.

The award, part of ARIA's Human Developmental Neurobiology Research Hub, funds two Yale-led projects within a four-project collaboration that also involves Harvard University. Combined, the initiative targets a gap researchers say has stalled autism drug and diagnostic development for decades: no detailed reference map exists for how the human brain wires itself in the first years of life.