Christina Theodoris to Receive ASCI’s 2026 Seldin-Smith Award for Pioneering Research

Gladstone Investigator Christina Theodoris, MD, PhD, has been named the recipient of the prestigious 2026 Seldin-Smith Award for Pioneering Research. The honor is bestowed annually by the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI) to a single early-career physician-scientist who demonstrates exceptional creativity and transformative accomplishments in biomedical research.

Theodoris is recognized for developing novel artificial intelligence models to revolutionize how scientists interrogate the inner workings of human cells. Her lab’s models predict how gene networks regulate development, aging, and disease progression—work with immediate applications for human health.

“Receiving the Seldin-Smith Award is an incredible honor and a wonderful recognition of the promise of our science to make a clinical impact,” says Theodoris, who also serves as assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics at UC San Francisco. “My team is deeply committed to developing AI models to uncover fundamental principles of gene network biology and accelerate the discovery of new, transformative therapies for complex diseases.”

Pioneering AI Models for Human Health

Theodoris is the designer of Geneformer, the world’s first foundational AI model created to predict how changing gene activity impacts individual human cells. Geneformer has already identified promising new drug targets for heart disease. Building on this success, her lab recently introduced MaxToki, a temporal AI model capable of predicting cellular changes associated with aging and identifying methods to slow that process.

“Christina’s visionary work at the intersection of AI and biology is fundamentally transforming how we understand and tackle cardiovascular conditions and beyond,” says Benoit Bruneau, PhD, director of the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease. “By developing generative models to map complex cellular dynamics, her research is opening entirely new avenues to overcome disease and improve patient outcomes.”

Established in 2014, the Seldin-Smith Award honors two legendary members of the society who passed away in 2018: Donald W. Seldin, MD, and Lloyd H. “Holly” Smith Jr., MD. Both are celebrated for their seminal research contributions, institutional leadership, and dedicated mentorship of generations of physician-scientists. Smith, a longtime Chair of Medicine at UC San Francisco, played a central role in UCSF’s rise to an international powerhouse, and in the founding of Gladstone Institutes in 1979. Seldin played a similar role in the emergence of University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas into a top biomedical center.

Honoring a Founding Legacy in Medicine

“Christina represents the very best of early-career biomedical research, exemplifying the boundary-pushing creativity and clinical insight this award was designed to celebrate,” says Gladstone President Deepak Srivastava, MD, who mentored Theodoris during her graduate studies as an MD-PhD student at UCSF a decade ago. “It is profoundly meaningful for our community to see Christina receive an honor bearing the name of Holly Smith—a foundational leader whose vision shaped Gladstone’s history and whose legacy continues to inspire our mission every day.”

The Seldin-Smith Award includes dedicated mentorship from members of the award selection and advisory committees. In addition, Theodoris will be inducted into ASCI and deliver a keynote research presentation at the combined annual meeting of the ASCI, the Association of American Physicians, and the American Physician Scientists Association in April 2027.