Skip to content

Program notes — AGBT 2026

Research notes underpinning the AGBT 2026 vault. Confirmed program structure, organizing committee, vendor-PR index, and post-event source aggregation.

Confirmed dates / venue

  • Per build brief and historical record: Marco Island, FL, February 22–25, 2026.
  • Per agbt.org agenda page as fetched (May 2026): Orlando, FL, Feb 23–26, 2026 — with the 2027 meeting listed separately as Orlando Mar 1–4, 2027.
  • Per 10times.com listing: Marco Island, Feb 2026.

Resolution needed. The agbt.org page may have been overwritten with 2027 info after the 2026 meeting concluded, or one of the listings is for an alternate edition (e.g. Agricultural Meeting vs General Meeting). The vault uses Marco Island, Feb 22–25, 2026 per the build brief; revisit when archived AGBT 2026 program PDFs surface or after the AGBT media archive updates.

Organizing committee

Co-chairs as listed on the AGBT 2026 agenda page:

  • Len Pennacchio — Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
  • Beth Shapiro — University of California, Santa Cruz

(Full committee not published on the public agenda page; closed roster.)

Plenary speakers

Per agbt.org 2026 agenda as fetched:

Day 1 plenary — Genomics

  • William Pao (Revelio Therapeutics) — "Decoding nature: how curiosity-driven research leads to breakthrough medicines"
  • Scott Edwards (Harvard) — "How to make a flightless bird"
  • Emma Teeling (University College Dublin) — "Bats: new models of extended healthspan"

Day 2 plenary — AI in Genomics

  • Barbara Engelhardt (Gladstone Institutes / Stanford)
  • Jack Gilbert (UC San Diego)
  • Marylyn Ritchie (Medical University of South Carolina)
  • Megan Dennis (UC Davis)

Day 3 plenary — Genetics & Technology

  • Elaine Mardis (Rasmussen Institute, formerly Nationwide Children's)
  • Hilary Finucane (Harvard / Broad Institute)
  • Kathryn Paige Harden (University of Texas)

Day 4 plenary — Evolutionary Genomics & Technology

  • Katie Hinde (Arizona State University)
  • Chris Jiggins (University of Cambridge)
  • Dan Rokhsar (UC Berkeley)

Additional invited speakers indexed elsewhere on agbt.org: Elinor Karlsson (UMass Chan / Broad), Adam Phillippy (NHGRI), Neville Sanjana (NYGC / NYU).

Concurrent / abstract sessions

  • Tracks: Cancer, Computational Biology, Technology, Biology.
  • Format: Tuesday and Wednesday evenings; abstract-selected oral presentations.
  • Abstracts visible to attendees only — no public abstract book for the General Meeting.

Sponsors / workshops

Per agbt.org agenda:

  • Gold: Illumina.
  • Silver: Ultima Genomics; Bruker Spatial Biology; Roche.
  • Bronze: nine technology-partner workshops (vendor list not enumerated on the public page; includes at minimum Element Biosciences, PacBio, Oxford Nanopore, 10x Genomics, Singular Genomics, Vizgen, Watchmaker, NEB based on coverage).

Confirmed launches with source citations

Vendor Launch Source URL Citation date
Roche Axelios 1 sequencer https://www.genomeweb.com/sequencing/promising-150-genome-roche-reveals-more-details-axelios-sequencer-agbt Feb 2026 (week of AGBT); press release 2026-02-26
Roche Axelios run-pricing analysis https://omicsomics.blogspot.com/2026/03/roche-axelios1-run-pricing-not-knockout.html Mar 2026
Element Biosciences VITARI https://www.elementbiosciences.com/news/element-biosciences-introduces-vitari-redefining-what-high-throughput-sequencing-makes-possible 2026-02-19 (webinar pre-AGBT)
Element Biosciences AGBT recap blog https://www.elementbiosciences.com/blog/agbt-2026-recap-relentless-innovation-where-it-counts Late Feb / Mar 2026
Ultima Genomics UG200 / UG200 Ultra https://albertvilella.substack.com/p/illumina-announcements-and-ultima Feb 2026
Complete Genomics DNBSEQ-T7+ + Swiss Rockets acquisition https://www.completegenomics.com/complete-genomics-highlights-dnbseq-t7-at-agbt-2026-expanding-high-throughput-sequencing-capability/ Feb 2026
Complete Genomics Swiss Rockets license / acquisition https://swissrockets.com/news/swiss-rockets-announces-strategic-exclusive-license-acquisition-of-cutting-edge-sequencing-technology-from-mgi-tech-and-complete-genomics Feb 2026
Illumina TruPath + Q70 duplex roadmap https://www.illumina.com/events/conferences/2026/agbt-2026.html Feb 2026
Illumina Spatial pre-AGBT teaser https://www.genengnews.com/topics/omics/illumina-unveils-spatial-technology-days-before-agbt-meeting/ Feb 2026 (pre-AGBT)
Illumina Multiomic press release https://www.illumina.com/company/news-center/press-releases/press-release-details.html?newsid=15da9928-16c1-453a-b908-a4469a1fc91c Feb 2026
PacBio CiFi (UC Davis) https://www.pacb.com/press_releases/pacbio-and-uc-davis-researchers-introduce-cifi-a-new-long-read-3c-method-that-enables-chromosome-scale-assemblies-from-a-single-smrt-cell/ 2026-01-08 (pre-AGBT)
PacBio Q1 2026 financial results (recap) https://www.pacb.com/press_releases/pacbio-announces-first-quarter-2026-financial-results/ May 2026
Oxford Nanopore AGBT 2026 conference page (talks listing) https://nanoporetech.com/about/events/conferences/agbt-2026 Feb 2026
10x Genomics Xenium RNA+Protein + roadmap https://www.genomeweb.com/business-news/agbt-showcases-diversity-spatial-genomics-technologies Feb 2026
10x Genomics Atera (AACR formal launch — cross-ref only) https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/10x-genomics-introduces-atera-a-new-platform-to-redefine-how-biology-is-measured-and-understood-302746542.html Apr 2026
10x Genomics Atera spec page https://www.10xgenomics.com/instruments/atera-instrument Apr–May 2026
Singular Genomics G4X spatial sequencer https://www.genengnews.com/topics/omics/agbt-2026-recap-ngs-big-bets-and-spatials-rising-momentum/ Feb 2026 (week of AGBT)
Bruker / Vizgen / Stellaromics / Codetta / Cellanome / Volta / Syndex Recap https://www.genengnews.com/topics/omics/agbt-2026-recap-ngs-big-bets-and-spatials-rising-momentum/ Feb–Mar 2026

Vendor PR coverage indexed by company

Post-event summary aggregators

Pre-existing vault pages that consume data from AGBT-launched platforms:

AACR 2026 talks likely powered by AGBT-launched platforms

To be filled in when AACR 2026 poster-content extraction lands. Initial heuristics for the AACR poster scrape:

  • Xenium / Xenium RNA+Protein → search AACR posters for "Xenium", "in-situ", "in situ". Xenium RNA+Protein was AGBT-roadmap, mid-2026 availability — AACR 2026 (April) posters will mostly still use Xenium v1, but late-breaking abstracts may flag the multiomic upgrade.
  • Visium HD / Visium → "Visium" / "10x Visium HD" / "spatial transcriptomics".
  • Atera (10x) → unlikely to appear in AACR 2026 data (ships H2 2026), but expect prominent vendor-booth and methods-track mentions.
  • CosMx (Bruker / NanoString) → "CosMx" / "NanoString spatial".
  • MERFISH / MERSCOPE (Vizgen) → "MERFISH" / "MERSCOPE".
  • PacBio HiFi / Revio SPRQ / CiFi → "HiFi" / "Revio" / "long-read assembly". CiFi is too new for AACR 2026 data but expect methods-track posters from UC Davis collaborators.
  • Oxford Nanopore PromethION cfDNA/cfRNA → "nanopore" / "PromethION" / "cell-free RNA". Christopher Mason (Weill Cornell) and Jiwoon Park were AGBT presenters and recurring AACR poster authors — flag their AACR 2026 posters for cross-citation.
  • Element AVITI / VITARI → "AVITI" / "Element Biosciences" / "Avidity sequencing".
  • Ultima UG200 → "Ultima" / "single-end" + cancer cohort scale (Ultima's pitch is cohort-scale exome/WGS).
  • DNBSEQ-T7+ (Complete Genomics) → "DNBSEQ" / "MGI" / "T7".
  • Roche Axelios → too new for AACR 2026 data (formal launch summer 2026); expect vendor-booth presence only.

Once the AACR poster bulk-extract runs, populate program-notes.md with the matched poster IDs.

GBCC 2025 / Bioconductor cross-refs

The Bioconductor spatial stack (SpatialExperiment, SpatialFeatureExperiment, Voyager, spatialLIBD, SOSTA, SpatialData) is platform-agnostic by design, but its release-cycle relevance scales with whichever spatial platform wins shelf space. Specifically:

  • Xenium / Xenium RNA+Protein output formats — primary consumer of SpatialFeatureExperiment + SpatialExperiment integrations.
  • MERSCOPE / MERFISH 2.0 — Voyager and SpatialData both have MERSCOPE readers.
  • CosMx (Bruker) — SpatialExperiment / SpatialData both support CosMx ingestion.
  • Atera (10x) — readers will need to be written once Atera ships H2 2026.

Dead ends / open items

  • GenomeWeb articles are paywalled. Headlines and lede paragraphs are accessible; full benchmark tables and quotes are not. Wherever a GenomeWeb URL is cited, the spec was reconstructed from the visible preview + the corresponding vendor PR + a substack/blog summary.
  • AGBT poster / abstract book is closed. No URL exists for individual concurrent talks; attribution to specific speakers is only possible when those speakers also tweeted, blogged, or were quoted by trade press.
  • agbt.org agenda page conflict (Marco Island vs Orlando, Feb 22–25 vs Feb 23–26) — see top-of-page note. Awaiting reconciliation.
  • Bronze sponsor list is not enumerated on the public agenda page — known only from vendor self-disclosure and trade-press recap.
  • C&EN article (cen.acs.org) returned HTTP 406 on WebFetch — content sampled via web search excerpts only; consider manually mirroring key paragraphs.
  • Element AGBT recap blog (elementbiosciences.com/blog/agbt-2026-recap-...) — surfaced in search but not deep-fetched; pull when populating the VITARI dossier.
  • Twitter / Bluesky #AGBT26 firehose — not archived. Real-time photo and quote capture happened during the meeting but is now diffuse across user timelines.
  • omicsomics.blogspot.com/2026/02/agbt-2026-preview.html is a preview (pre-meeting), not a recap. Recap content is split across the author's later posts (notably the Roche Axelios run-pricing post) and the Vilella substack two-part series.

TODO

  • [ ] Write per-launch dossier for each row in launches/index.md — start with Roche Axelios 1, Element VITARI, Ultima UG200 (the three biggest signals).
  • [ ] Resolve Marco Island / Orlando venue discrepancy; pull the actual AGBT 2026 program PDF if reachable.
  • [ ] Cross-reference AACR 2026 posters (once bulk extract lands) with platforms launched / refreshed at AGBT.
  • [ ] Backfill Bronze sponsor list from coverage / vendor booth-presence reports.
  • [ ] Add a year-over-year delta page if AGBT 2027 prep needs it.