On 10 April, we hosted Aspire 2025 at Stellix’s corporate headquarters in Foxborough, Massachusetts. Our vision for this event was to create an immersive experience representing our role in the life science ecosystem—one that fosters human connection around scientific and technological innovation to accelerate patient outcomes.
We wanted to bring together industry experts, big-picture thinkers, problem-solvers, builders and believers. People who care about the work not for its own sake, but for our family members, friends, and neighbors waiting on the other side.
What emerged was a new kind of energy, one that left people inspired, motivated, and with greater collective clarity around their roles as individuals within a wider ecosystem united around the same goal: accelerating the development and delivery of life-changing therapies for patients.
The privilege of witnessing that energy firsthand and playing a small part in bringing it out is what I’m still thinking about days later.
The resulting responsibility to perpetuate that energy beyond Aspire is what I want to hold onto.
The Power of Connection
So much of our work at Stellix is rooted in technology, data, and structure. We’re proud of that. But Aspire was a powerful reminder that meaningful change cannot occur through technology alone. Technology, data, and structure are the tools that humans use to create the change we want to see in our lives.
When you stand shoulder to shoulder with someone and contribute to a common vision, extraordinary things can happen. That spirit—of shared ownership, of curiosity, of purpose—is what we hoped to foster. And, it was everywhere. One attendee walked up to me and said, “I can’t believe you got all these organizations to come together and share ideas about how to solve the industry’s biggest challenges.”
That’s the kind of community we’re trying to build—and at Aspire, I saw it start to take shape. This was just one moment among many that I never want to forget.
Jamie Metzl’s keynote
Aspire also reminded me about the power of storytelling in bringing people together. Jamie Metzl’s keynote still sits with me. He spoke about the future of personalized medicine, but he didn’t do it with stats or charts, he told a story about his father’s battle with stage four neuroendocrine cancer.
When his father was first diagnosed, Jamie and his family decided to pursue an unconventional pathway—to have the cancer’s genome sequenced directly from the diagnostic biopsy sample. This would allow researchers to grow the cells into cancer organoids and put them through a variety of protocols that would help the treatment team identify a pathway fitting the cancer’s genetic profile.
When the results revealed a rare mutation in his father’s cancer, the oncology team gave Jamie’s family a choice: they could pursue the standard treatment regimen or a regimen that was more targeted to fit the cancer’s genetic profile but had only been used in 30 previous cases, according to the medical literature. They chose the targeted approach and that path resulted in the cancer’s remission and extended his father’s life.
The story of Jamie’s father reminded me what this work is about. Not systems. Not theory. But people.
Shaylee’s story
We were also privileged to have Shaylee Boger speak about her journey living with Pompe disease—a rare genetic disorder that leads to muscle weakness and damage due to the buildup of glycogen in the patient’s cells. Of the three therapies available, she can only take one because of a corn allergy. That one therapy happens to be a project I worked on early in my career. I had no idea until the day of the event.
But it hit me. Hard.
Although she’s advocated for the Pompe community before Congress and in other venues around the country, she refuses to let the disease define her. Moreover, her perspective demonstrated the staggering complexity of an individual’s biology and the importance of including patient voices in all aspects of life science.
She spoke about what it’s like to live as both a patient and a pioneer—to advocate, to adapt, to be a kind of human test case for others like her. Her presence grounded the day in what’s real and urgent and deeply human. Her story, too, reminded us who we’re doing this for.
Growth, Discomfort, and the Spark of Change
Planning Aspire was outside our team’s comfort zone. We’re not event planners—we’re engineers and scientists.
I pushed my team—with purpose. And what I saw was growth in every direction. People stepped up. They stretched. They rose to the occasion. And they did it together. They didn’t leave our event drained. They left buzzing. That’s how I know we got it right.
Creating space. Building Trust. Supporting growth. These are the things I think about constantly—especially when it comes to change. Change doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It happens when people feel connected, energized, and empowered to try something new.
That’s what Aspire gave us. A spark. A glimpse of what transformation feels like when it’s driven by people who believe in each other.
To my team: I’m in awe of you. You took on something unfamiliar, poured yourselves into it, and came out stronger. You made this possible.
And to everyone who came, contributed, connected—thank you. We didn’t change the world in a day. But we may have lit a spark that could.
To those vendors that helped make this event such a success—Hush, 4Wall Entertainment, DCL, Bizzabo, Vail Faucci Photography, Voyager, Constellation Culinary Group, The Perfect Parcel, DIY Drinkware, and many others—thank you. You brought excellence, energy, and care to every detail.
Now, the work is to keep that momentum alive...keeping our purpose on the windshield...and our community connected.
