Dr. David Liu Gives 2026 Oshman Lecture at the Duncan NRI September 2, 2026

On September 2nd, Dr. David Liu, honored professor at MIT and Harvard and an HHMI Investigator, gave the 2026 Jeanette Oshman Efron Distinguished Lecture at the Duncan NRI. His lecture was titled, "Mutation-specific, mutation-agnostic and disease-agnostic therapeutic genome editing." The lecture was attended by more than 400 members of the Texas Children's and Baylor College of Medicine community and was well-received.  

Dr. Liu is one of the most influential scientists of his generation.  His laboratory has developed several landmark technologies including base editing, prime editing, phage-assisted continuous evolution (PACE), and DNA-templated synthesis that are now used by thousands of laboratories worldwide to advance both fundamental basic science and translational therapeutic development.   

He has authored more than 300 scientific publications, is co-inventor on more than 115 issued U.S. patents, and has founded or co-founded numerous biotechnology companies, including Prime Medicine, Beam Therapeutics, Editas Medicine, Pairwise Plants, nChroma Bio, and Exo Therapeutics. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. His honors include the 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, the 2026 Bower Award for Achievement in Science, the 2026 Harvey Prize, and the 2026 American Chemical Society Award for Creative Invention.

Background on Baylor College of Medicine's Oshman Lectureship in Molecular Genetics

Jeanette Oshman Efron, who passed away in 2009 at the age of 98, was an ardent supporter of science and art, and a generous friend to Baylor College of Medicine. The Oshman Lectureship in Molecular Genetics was established at Baylor in 1989 by her daughters, Marilyn Oshman and Judy Margolis, and her grandchildren, Karen Desenberg, Gary Gerson, Jay Gerson, and Andrew Lubetkin, to honor Jeanette’s passion and commitment to the advancement of medical education and biomedical research. This lecture series brings internationally renowned scientists to Baylor to present seminars on important developments in genetics. Shirley Tilghmann and Bonnie Bassler of Princeton, Lucy Shapiro of Stanford, Richard Axel from Columbia and Joe Goldstein from UT Southwestern, and Joan Steitz from Yale University have been some of our guests. To quote her daughter, Marilyn Oshman, “She helped put people through school and gave and loaned them money.  She was amazingly generous.”