BEAR Cage

The Application Portal for the ATS 2026 BEAR Cage Competition has closed.

The BEAR Cage (Building Education to Advance Research) Competition is hosted annually by the Drug, Device, Discovery, and Development (DDDD) Committee. The program is open to early-stage investigators with highly innovative, translational, human-focused research proposals. The top three submissions are chosen by the DDDD Committee, and the finalists are invited to pitch their proposals to a panel of translational science experts representing academia, industry, and governmental sectors in front of a live audience at the ATS International Conference.

The panel, with audience participation, will “vet” these proposals with each presenter, providing a unique shark-tank-like learning environment that fuels real-time feedback and propels the strategic thinking required for these novel ideas to become innovations. After each presentation, the live panel and audience will have sufficient time to ask questions to each of the top three contestants. Ultimately, the panel will award one grand prize winner a $10,000 prize and the two runner-up proposals $2,500 each.

For any questions about the 2026 competition, please send an email to dddd@thoracic.org. 

Mark your calendars for May 18, 2026, from 1:30-3:30 p.m. ET and cheer on our finalists with the following research presentations:

Xiang Gao, PhD

Chief Scientist
Scientific Horizons Consulting

“A Precision Intranasal Nebulization Platform (PIN) for Targeted Nasal Drug Delivery”

Emily Mitchell, MD

Co-Investigator
University of California, San Diego

“Breaking the Silence: Eye-Tracking for Restoring Patient Agency and Communication in the ICU"

Keziyah Yisrael-Gayle, PhD

Postdoctoral Fellow/Founder and CEO
TollRAir/UC-Riverside

“Development of an Extended-Release Aerosol Formulation of Toll-like Receptor 4 (TLR4) Inhibitors to Protect Against Lipopolysaccharide-Induced Non-Allergic Asthma”