ADLM 2026 Explores Diabetes Milestones, Space Diagnostics, Alzheimer’s–Down Syndrome Links, and Cancer Advances

Convened by the Association for Diagnostics & Laboratory Medicine (ADLM), the meeting combines a broad scientific and educational program with the ADLM 2026 Clinical Lab Expo at the Anaheim Convention Center. This year's meeting highlights advances spanning diabetes care, space diagnostics, neurodegenerative disease, cervical cancer screening, cancer biomarkers, artificial intelligence, point-of-care testing, and laboratory automation.

Five plenary sessions anchor this year’s scientific program, beginning with a reflection on five decades of diabetes research by Dr. David M. Nathan, director of the Clinical Research Center at Massachusetts General Hospital and recipient of the 2026 Wallace H. Coulter Lectureship. Dr. Nathan’s work contributed to establishing hemoglobin A1c as a standard blood test for long-term diabetes management and helped demonstrate the glucose-lowering role of glucagon-like peptide-1, laying groundwork for a major class of diabetes and obesity medications.

During the opening plenary, Dr. Nathan will discuss his journey from laboratory research to clinical care and the scientific collaborations that shaped advances in diabetes prevention and treatment. He will also address the importance of sustained federal research funding in enabling long-term studies capable of transforming medical practice.

Laboratory medicine beyond Earth is the focus of a plenary led by Dr. Kathleen McMonigal, director of the NASA Johnson Space Center Clinical Laboratory. The session explores the challenges of monitoring astronaut health in zero- and microgravity, where bone loss, fluid shifts, and other physiological changes require specialized testing strategies and biomarker surveillance.

As crewed missions travel farther and last longer, portable diagnostic systems will become increasingly important for delivering healthcare without immediate access to terrestrial laboratories. Dr. McMonigal will discuss innovations needed to support continuous health monitoring during future missions to the Moon and Mars, including compact technologies capable of generating actionable results in space.

Another plenary examines the close relationship between Down syndrome and Alzheimer’s disease. Dr. Elizabeth Head, dean’s professor and vice chair for research in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of California, Irvine, will present findings from more than 25 years of research into why people with Down syndrome face a substantially elevated risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.

Dr. Head will highlight efforts to identify biomarkers and therapeutic targets that could delay or prevent Alzheimer’s disease in this population. The observation that some people with Down syndrome remain resistant to the disease may also provide insights relevant to precision medicine and Alzheimer’s prevention in the broader aging population.

Expanding access to cervical cancer screening is addressed by Dr. Leeya Pinder, a gynecologic oncologist and associate professor at the University of Cincinnati. In the plenary, Dr. Pinder will discuss how self-collection kits for human papillomavirus testing can reach individuals who face geographic, financial, cultural, or healthcare-system barriers to conventional screening.

The session will also cover low-cost treatment approaches such as thermal ablation and the potential use of AI to improve screening accuracy and availability. Together, these strategies could help connect more women with timely diagnosis and treatment while reducing persistent disparities in cervical cancer outcomes.

In the closing plenary, Dr. Arun Wiita, a physician-scientist and professor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, will present research aimed at discovering new biomarkers and immune-based therapies for blood cancers. His team combines chemical biology, mass spectrometry, and computational analysis to characterize proteins found on the surface of malignant cells.

Mass spectrometry allows researchers to identify and measure proteins and other molecules with high precision, supporting the discovery of disease markers that could form the basis of new diagnostic tests or therapeutic targets. Dr. Wiita’s work illustrates how advanced analytical technologies can bridge basic cancer biology and clinical translation.

“These five compelling plenary speakers are working on diverse fronts to drive clinical laboratory medicine forward,” said ADLM CEO Melanie J. Wells. The plenary program runs from Sunday through Thursday, with all five sessions taking place in Ballroom ABC at the Anaheim Convention Center.

Across the scientific sessions and Clinical Lab Expo, ADLM 2026 brings together laboratory professionals, physicians, researchers, and industry leaders to examine how emerging science and diagnostic technologies can improve patient care on Earth—and beyond.