Sage Bionetworks adds computational biology pioneer Lawrence Hunter to board

Sage Bionetworks named Lawrence Hunter, a University of Chicago pediatrics professor and early leader in computational biology, to its Board of Directors on October 20, 2026. The appointment adds a researcher focused on biomedical knowledge graphs and model verification to a nonprofit working in open science and data-driven collaboration.

Why it matters: - Lawrence Hunter helped build computational biology and now works on biomedical knowledge graphs, putting him at the center of research questions Sage Bionetworks is pursuing. - His board role could strengthen Sage Bionetworks’ work on open science, radical collaboration and methods that keep model outputs tied to verified knowledge.

What happened: - Sage Bionetworks named Lawrence (Larry) Hunter, PhD, to its Board of Directors on October 20, 2026. - Hunter is a professor of pediatrics at the University of Chicago. - Hunter moved to the University of Chicago in 2024 after 23 years at the University of Colorado.

The details: - Hunter founded the International Society for Computational Biology in 1997 and served as its president until 2000. - Hunter also founded two major field conferences: Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology and the Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing. - Hunter’s recent research focuses on biomedical knowledge graphs and how they can work alongside large language models. - Hunter was senior author on the paper describing PheKnowLator, an open-source knowledge graph ecosystem for the life sciences. - Hunter co-authored “Desiderata for a biomedical knowledge network,” which came out of the NIH Knowledge Graph Working Group. - Hunter’s group built an “ignorance base,” a system for mining what the scientific literature says is not yet known. - Sage Bionetworks said Hunter has a long relationship with the organization and will help it continue to thrive. - Luca Foschini, PhD, president and CEO of Sage Bionetworks, said Hunter helped create the field Sage works in and that his research addresses how to keep model outputs tied to what is known and verifiable.

Between the lines: - Hunter’s appointment signals Sage Bionetworks wants board-level expertise in both foundational computational biology and newer AI-adjacent research. - The emphasis on verifiability suggests Sage is focused on scientific infrastructure, not just model performance.

What's next: - Hunter will join Sage Bionetworks’ existing board, which includes Stephen H. Friend, Eric Schadt, Luca Foschini, Jennifer Goldsack, Brian J. Fox, Carole Goble and Andrea Varsavsky. - Sage Bionetworks will likely draw on Hunter’s experience as it advances work in knowledge graphs, open science and model grounding.

The bottom line: - Sage Bionetworks added a field-building computational biologist whose work aligns closely with the organization’s core scientific mission.