The Association for Diagnostics & Laboratory Medicine (ADLM) will bring together thousands of clinical laboratory professionals in Anaheim, California, for ADLM 2026, featuring plenary sessions focused on advances in diabetes testing, space-based diagnostics, Alzheimer’s disease research, cancer screening, and biomarker discovery.
The meeting, scheduled for July 26–30, 2026, will highlight how laboratory medicine continues to expand into new areas of clinical care, from improving chronic disease management on Earth to supporting future human space exploration.
Plenary sessions showcase laboratory innovation
Diabetes testing milestones and the evolution of care
The opening plenary on July 26 will feature David M. Nathan, MD, who will discuss his decades of work advancing diabetes care. Nathan’s research helped establish hemoglobin A1c as the standard blood test for monitoring long-term diabetes management and contributed to understanding the role of glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) in glucose regulation, helping inform newer diabetes and obesity treatments.
Diagnostics beyond Earth: Supporting astronaut health
A July 27 session will examine the unique diagnostic challenges of space exploration. Kathleen McMonigal, MD, director of the NASA Johnson Space Center Clinical Laboratory, will discuss how spaceflight conditions such as microgravity can affect astronaut health, including bone loss and fluid shifts. She will also address the need for portable diagnostic technologies capable of supporting longer-duration missions to the moon and Mars.
Exploring the Alzheimer’s and Down syndrome connection
Laboratory medicine’s role in neurodegenerative disease research will also be highlighted through a presentation on July 28 by Elizabeth Head, PhD, MA, who has studied the relationship between Down syndrome and Alzheimer’s disease for more than 25 years. Her work focuses on identifying potential targets for interventions and understanding why some individuals with Down syndrome may be resistant to Alzheimer’s development.
Expanding access to cervical cancer screening
On July 29, Leeya Pinder, MD, MPH, will highlight developments in cervical cancer screening, including HPV self-collection kits designed to improve access to testing and connect more patients with treatment. She will also discuss emerging technologies, including thermal ablation and artificial intelligence approaches, that may help improve screening availability and accuracy.
Using mass spectrometry to discover cancer biomarkers
On Thursday, July 30, Arun Wiita, MD, PhD, will present research using mass spectrometry, chemical biology, and computational methods to identify protein biomarkers in blood cancers. These approaches may support the development of new cancer tests and immune-based therapies by improving the ability to detect and characterize disease-related molecules.
“These five compelling plenary speakers are working on diverse fronts to drive clinical laboratory medicine forward,” said ADLM CEO Melanie J. Wells, in a press release. “Together with nearly seventeen thousand other global leaders in our field, they will make ADLM 2026 the ultimate meeting of great minds.”
The conference will showcase how laboratory diagnostics are evolving across disease areas through advances in biomarkers, molecular technologies, and precision medicine approaches.
Note: This news summary was generated by AI based on a published press release, followed by a review from human editors.
