Conference: 2026 Bioanalytical Sensors Gordon Research Conference and Seminar

Sensors are devices that detect or quantify a physical or chemical property of interest. They inform many of the decisions in our lives. They help diagnose diseases, guide the care of agricultural crops and livestock, and provide real-time information on health status and activity through smart watches. The 2026 Bioanalytical Sensors Gordon Research Conference and Gordon Research Seminar will bring together experts and early-career researchers from around the world to address grand challenges in health monitoring and diagnostic development. This conference will serve the sensing community by promoting interactions and learning across a broad, global group of scientists, engineers, and practitioners at various stages of their careers. The topics covered and collaborations forged at this 21st Bioanalytical Sensors GRC/GRS will catalyze advances that can advance national health, prosperity, and security. Sensors designed for analytical performance provide the accurate datasets needed to mitigate the spread of infections, inform healthcare decisions, and maintain food safety and security. When designed for laboratory use, these sensors can provide molecular insights into the underlying biological processes that present as healthy or distressed phenotypes in the clinic or the field. When designed with the user interface in mind, sensors can provide individuals with health-related metrics and track progress toward a healthy lifestyle through smart, integrated platforms that record and analyze data collected by these sensors. When designed with cost in mind, sensors can be readily deployed to all communities and to benefit the health of all. Because of the prominent role sensors play in our lives, establishing a community of experts to discuss outstanding challenges in biosensing and potential approaches to address them is key to improving measurement accuracy across biomedical research, health, food security, forensics, and related fields. The 2026 Bioanalytical Sensors Gordon Research Conference and Research Seminar will seek to fulfill this need in an intimate, inclusive, and scholarly setting. The audience for this conference will be interdisciplinary, as the innovations and implementation of successful sensing modalities require input from scientists, engineers, biomedical and biological disciplines, and experts from both for-profit and non-profit settings who translate ideas from the laboratory to end users. This conference will assemble a group of discussion leaders and speakers who are world experts in various aspects of biosensing - from fundamental research to dissemination - and will bring together the necessary stakeholders to forge new collaborations and discuss pressing needs in the sensing field. This is the 21st Bioanalytical Sensors Gordon Research Conference, a community dedicated to mentoring the next generation of scientists and engineers. The meeting will include participants at all career stages and will provide ample time for mentoring graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and early-career researchers. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. NSF Award ID: 2615608 | Program: 01002627DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT | Principal Investigator: Rebecca Whelan | Institution: Gordon Research Conferences, EAST GREENWICH, RI | Award Amount: $29,960 View on NSF Award Search: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/show-award/?AWD_ID=2615608 View on Research.gov: https://www.research.gov/awardapi-service/v1/awards/2615608.html