See you at CAP26
August 2026—At the upcoming CAP26 annual meeting in Las Vegas, you might notice key differences compared with our past meetings. We know some elements that were once compelling reasons to attend conferences, such as CME credits, are no longer the draw they used to be.
To keep up with a changing environment, our meeting had to evolve. I’d like to thank the new Member Events Committee, chaired by Eric Glassy, MD, for helping the CAP reimagine this conference. This year’s meeting carries a theme that captures what we believe a great professional gathering should accomplish: Connect. Inspire. Embrace. With their help, the event will incorporate new elements designed to be highly relevant to our work as pathologists—helping us connect with colleagues and industry partners, inspiring us with the newest knowledge and tools, and encouraging us to embrace change as an opportunity rather than a challenge.
The Innovation Hub is something we started last year to help pathologists keep up with the rapidly changing landscape of digital pathology and AI tools. It was so successful that we’ll include it again this year. It’s a state-of-the-art technology testing space set up in the exhibit hall where pathologists have the chance to try some of the latest digital pathology and AI products. If you have felt apprehensive about these new tools or have not had an opportunity to try them, the Innovation Hub is the place to embrace them in a hands-on, risk-free setting. These tools are going to be increasingly important for our community and the way we work, so I encourage you to take advantage of the opportunity to get up to speed and think about how you might incorporate them into clinical practice.
We will also be focusing on areas where the CAP has unique capabilities: lab quality and advocacy. Nobody else focuses on lab quality the way we do, and none of the other pathology conferences can represent this topic as well as we can. CAP26 will dive into issues surrounding lab quality and proficiency testing that will help pathologists ensure their own laboratory excellence. On the advocacy front, we will update our members on the CAP’s efforts to ensure we all have the ability to deliver top-notch care to our patients. Some people think it’s distasteful to talk about reimbursement or other financial topics—but if our labs have no money they will shut down. How can we help patients then? We need fair reimbursement levels to sustain our profession, and our upcoming annual meeting will help members understand how the CAP is fighting for us and for our patients.
This year you will also notice the presence of more pharmaceutical companies at our meeting. As we look at the rising number of precision therapies in development, we know that almost all of them will be released with a companion diagnostic biomarker test. It can be difficult to keep up with all of these therapies and tests through the literature; our annual meeting can serve as a venue for pathologists to learn about these new therapies and the tests that go with them before we put them into practice. We know that scoring biomarkers and establishing guidelines for the test results that match a patient to a therapy are communitywide efforts that involve working closely with pharmaceutical companies and federal agencies such as the National Institutes of Health. What better place than our annual meeting to get started on these initiatives?
Of course, many things at the annual meeting have not changed—and that is by design, because they embody the best of what our theme calls for. There will be plenty of excellent networking events to encourage face-to-face interactions among our members. This is what I love most about our member events: the chance to truly connect with people who are passionate about pathology so we can exchange ideas and help each other. Meanwhile, in the exhibit hall, you’ll have the chance to connect with vendors offering an array of helpful tools and products that might solve a problem your lab is facing. And we’ll have plenty of educational sessions where we can all find new insights to inspire our practice.
At CAP26, I hope that what happens in Vegas doesn’t stay in Vegas. Come to our annual meeting ready to connect with colleagues you haven’t seen in years, to be inspired by ideas that will change the way you practice, and to embrace a future for pathology that is brighter than ever. And when you get back home, be sure to share all these great insights and lessons with your colleagues.
Dr. Zhai welcomes communication from CAP members. Write to him at president@cap.org.