During a busy year in global health, some of the most influential names driving innovation and shaping policy gathered Thursday night at the TIME100 Health Impact Dinner.<\/p>\n
The 2026 TIME100 Health<\/a> list honors a diverse group of scientists, doctors, advocates, educators, and other changemakers leading the way in pioneering breakthrough treatments, improving access to care, and creating awareness around emerging issues in public health. The evening featured a panel on preventative care moderated by TIME executive editor Nikhil Kumar<\/a> and ended with a round of toasts from four honorees, who spoke about the importance of long-term funding for health, reinterpreting the story around aging, and altruism to help those in medical need. <\/p>\n Investing in health<\/p>\n The first toast of the night was given by Dr. Kiran Musunuru, director of the Genetic and Epigenetic Origins of Disease Program at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. He and Dr. Rebecca Ahrens-Nicklas<\/a> used a personalized CRISPR therapy to tweak a mutation that turned the devastating genetic disorder of an infant child named KJ into a manageable condition.\u00a0<\/p>\n However, he noted that the monumental success of KJ\u2019s treatment is the end result of decades of research that went into achievements like The Human Genome Project, rapid whole-genome sequencing, CRISPR gene editing, lipid nanoparticle formulations, RNA technology, representing the career work of many scientists behind the scenes.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re simply one link in a very long chain \u2026 and, of course, no part of that long chain could have been forged without strong support from the federal government\u201d and funding from the National Institutes of Health, he said. \u201cEqually important were the career staff at the Food and Drug Administration, who worked closely with us to strike the right balance of rigor, flexibility, and speed in developing the therapy for KJ.\u201d<\/p>\n As things are starting to get interesting in medicine and health, \u201cnow is not the time to take the foot off the accelerator,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n An alternative narrative for aging<\/p>\n