New York City Mayor Eric Adams and the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) celebrated the City Council’s vote to approve the Science Park and Research Campus (SPARC) Kips Bay and Innovation East projects, as part of the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP), signaling a historic win for New York City’s thriving life sciences industry and economy. SPARC Kips Bay, a first-of-its-kind life sciences innovation, career, and education hub is transforming an entire city block with over 2 million square feet of academic, public health, and life sciences space.

Leadership from Chan Zuckerberg Biohub New York, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), and representatives from Columbia University, The Rockefeller University, and Yale University gathered to celebrate progress in their mission to bioengineer immune cells for the early detection and treatment of diseases. The CZ Biohub New York is a new research hub aimed at catalyzing collaboration among scientists in the New York area. Researchers will build new tools that can characterize the behavior of our immune cells—the only cells in our bodies that interact with virtually all organs. These engineered cells can then be adapted to detect signals that are predictive of several diseases, from several lethal cancers to Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, at their earliest stages, long before they could be detected by conventional diagnosis methods. A deeper understanding of immune cell function creates enormous potential to imbue these cells with new abilities, paving the way for groundbreaking therapeutic advancements and treatments.

New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) announced its LifeSci NYC Internship Program has placed 1,000 students at over 220 partner companies over the past seven years. The program provides quality internships for New York City undergraduate and graduate students, while also pairing host companies with diverse talent and support across scientific and business functions. With the development of new talent will come new research, translating to more companies, jobs, medicines, and advanced technologies, which will ensure New York City remains the leader in developing treatments and cures for some of the most pressing public health challenges of the time.

NYCEDC has selected Imprint Labs as a 2025 LifeSci NYC Expansion Fund awardee, a funding opportunity for high-growth life sciences companies interested in expanding their operations in New York City. Imprint Labs, a new nonprofit initiative, announced it has raised $15 million in philanthropic funding to advance its work to decode the body’s immune memory and uncover the causes of chronic diseases. Imprint, a Focused Research Organization (FRO) catalyzed by Convergent Research, is pioneering new technologies to identify what triggers conditions like autoimmune disease, long COVID, and neuropsychiatric disorders by decoding the historical information stored in immune cells. Imprint has received philanthropic support from Eric and Wendy Schmidt, Convergent Research, Peter Reinhart, and the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC).