Key takeaways:
- ATS 2026 keynote series topics include vaccines, legal decisions and AI.
- The international conference committee received many submissions, making this year’s meeting selections very competitive.
The American Thoracic Society International Conference will be held May 15 to 20 in Orlando with the theme, “come for the science, stay for the magic.”
Notably, this year’s conference includes 566 education and scientific programs, 7,152 abstracts, 28,400 speakers/authors and 260 exhibitors, according to the ATSConference365 website.
Healio spoke with Jennifer L. Taylor, MD, MSc, ATSF, international conference committee chair, ahead of the meeting to highlight sessions of importance and how attendees should prepare.
Keynote series
Similar to prior meetings, there will be keynote sessions at 8 a.m. on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.
“The keynotes are meant for everyone,” Taylor told Healio. “They’re not on a specific topic related to one pulmonary focus. They’re intentionally chosen to be more global.”
The first session, “Vaccines – Past, Present and Future,” will be given by Demetre Daskalakis, MD, MPH, a former CDC director. During this 45-minute keynote, that measles and RSV will be used as case studies.
In contrast, the second session, “The Supreme Court, the Administrative State and You” will focus on how legal decisions impact health. Stephen Vladeck, JD, is the speaker for this session, and Taylor highlighted that Josh Fessel, MD, PhD, ATSF, will be the moderator.
“Fessel resigned from the NIH in 2025,” she said. “He wrote a letter about why he was resigning that was subsequently published in Annals of the American Thoracic Society. This session is going to be really exciting, especially given all that’s going on right now.”
The third keynote, “Opportunities and Challenges: Use of AI in Medical Education,” is one of many sessions discussing AI in medicine, according to Taylor. During this keynote, Taylor said Laurah Turner, PhD, will highlight the positive aspects about AI use in medical education, as well as the risks faced by those who use it to learn.
Other notable sessions on AI include the opening ceremony, AI Lab and postgraduate AI course (pre-registration required).
During the opening ceremony on Saturday at 4:15 p.m., Robert M. Wachter, MD, will give a talk inspired by his new book, “A Giant Leap: How AI is Transforming Healthcare and What That Means for Our Future.”
Importantly, the AI Lab Exposition Space in the exhibit hall is a new offering at this year’s meeting.
“In the lab, people will use hands-on techniques and be taught how to use different large language model systems,” Taylor told Healio.
“The AI field is changing so rapidly, and we all felt it was really important to have it touched on in different ways at the ICC,” she added.
The final session that everyone should plan to attend according to Taylor is the plenary session on Tuesday at 11:45 a.m. The keynote speaker of this session is Rana Awdish, MD, who wrote “In Shock: My Journey from Death to Recovery and the Redemptive Power of Hope.”
Important sessions
In addition to the keynotes, opening ceremony and plenary, Taylor told Healio there are several notable sessions that attendees should add to their schedules.
The first one is titled, “Breaking news: Clinical trial results in pulmonary medicine” and takes place on Sunday at 2:15 p.m. During this session, results from phase 3 trials will be presented, and Taylor told Healio it is always highly attended.
“Many of the trials will be released in high impact journals either the same day or the following week,” Taylor said.
Other highly attended sessions according to Taylor include the two sessions highlighting new and recent publications in JAMA, The New England Journal of Medicine and American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. Both take place on Monday. The first at 11:15 a.m. will focus on pulmonary research and the second at 2:15 p.m. will focus on critical care research.
There are also four “Clinical Year in Review” sessions, each highlighting four different topics in pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine. Topics include asthma, pulmonary vascular disease, vaccines, sleep, acute respiratory distress syndrome/acute hypoxemic respiratory failure, critical care, sepsis, post-ICU care/ICU rehab, cystic fibrosis/non-cystic fibrosis bronchiectasis, interstitial lung disease, lung transplant, occupational/environmental lung disease, COPD, interventional pulmonary, medical education and lung cancer.
Of the topics, Taylor told Healio she is most looking forward to the review on sleep.
“For a long time, the sole approach for patients with sleep apnea was use of CPAP, but so many new techniques and medicines have come out that are going to be highlighted in the clinical year review,” she said.
While discussing interesting sessions at this year’s meeting, Taylor also highlighted a symposium on the impact environmental elements have on health. This session includes several international speakers.
“Environmental factors affect everybody and are something we really need to think about in pulmonary medicine,” she said.
For those who want to learn more about the ways ATS is practicing advocacy, Taylor noted that Gary Ewart, MHS, chief of ATS advocacy and government relations, has several sessions.
There are also events/sessions for attendees during the midday/lunch hours. For example, the ATS diversity forum takes place on Sunday, and the women’s forum takes place on Monday. Both run 11:45 a.m. to 1:15 p.m. Taylor told Healio registration is required for these luncheons.
“There’ll be a panel interview during the women’s forum in a talk show format,” she said. “During the diversity forum, the trainees who received awards will be highlighted. I’ll also be speaking in this luncheon about resilience in a time of challenge.”
Notably, some of the midday sessions during this year’s meeting are abstract based, which Taylor said differs from prior years.
What to expect, preparing for the meeting
According to Taylor, the abundance of abstract and programming submissions the international conference committee received made this year’s programming very competitive.
“Attendees should expect some really groundbreaking science and highlights of what’s changed for clinicians so that they know what to go back and do for their patients,” Taylor said.
“There were a couple of years after the pandemic during which people were still trying to catch up on their data, but now people are ready to present it,” she added.
When preparing for the meeting, Taylor recommends putting together your schedule prior to arriving at the conference. Attendees can use either the ATS International Conference app or the ATSConference365 website to add sessions to their calendar. You can search for sessions based on type, topic and target audience on both platforms.
“There are a lot of sessions, and if you’re a first-time attendee, it can be overwhelming if you haven’t looked at the program ahead of time,” she told Healio.
“We really try to make sure that the programming is relevant for everyone, all the way from early career to people who are more senior, as well as clinicians and basic and clinical investigators,” Taylor added.
The Healio team will be on-site in Orlando during ATS 2026. Follow our coverage of the meeting here and on X @HealioPulm.
For more information:
Jennifer L. Taylor, MD, MSc, ATSF, can be reached at pulmonology@healio.com.
Sources/Disclosures
Source:
Healio Interviews
References:
Disclosures:
Taylor reports serving as faculty at an institution that is part of the Cystic Fibrosis Therapeutics Development Network (CF TDN); serving as site/national principal investigator on studies for 4D Molecular Therapeutics, BI, Sionna and Vertex; consulting for 4D Molecular Therapeutics and Vertex; receiving grant funding from the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (CFF) and NIH; serving as the adult patient care representative to the CFF board of trustees and clinical research executive committee; serving on the clinical research advisory board and as chair emeritus of the CF TDN sexual health, Reproduction and Gender Research-Working Group; serving on the scientific advisory board for Emily’s Entourage; serving as chair of the ATS International Conference Committee; and being a member of the international advisory board for Lancet Respiratory Medicine and the editorial board for the Journal of Cystic Fibrosis.
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