ASHG 2026 — Program Notes (pre-meeting prep)¶

Working file for everything we know about the program before the program-at-a-glance is public (typically released early-September 2026). All forward-looking content here is *expected, program not yet public* — to be reconciled with the official ASHG 2026 program.

Verified¶

Dates: Tuesday October 20 – Saturday October 24, 2026 (5 days)
Venue: Palais des Congrès de Montréal, 201 Av. Viger O, Montréal, Québec H2Z 1X7, Canada
City: Montréal, Québec, Canada (first ASHG in Canada since 2018; ASHG 2025 was Boston)
Expected attendance: 7,500+ from 75 countries
Scale: ~100+ scientific sessions; ~240 exhibitors/sponsors; ~3,000+ accepted abstracts (per ASHG 2025 baseline)
Theme: "Share Your Science with the Global Human Genetics & Genomics Community"
Presidential Symposium theme: "Communicating Science in an Uncertain World: Evidence, Storytelling, and Public Trust" — moderated by Susan A. Slaugenhaupt (MGH / Harvard Medical School)
Abstract deadline: May 18, 2026 (closing in one week as of this writing, May 11, 2026)
Hotel reservations open (members): May 11, 2026
Early-bird registration closes: August 12, 2026

Sources used to seed this file¶

Expected major tracks (per ASHG 2025 shape — expected, program not yet public)¶

Track	Subtopics
Mendelian disease & rare disease	Variant curation, GREGoR / UDN / Rare Diseases Clinical Research Network updates, gene discovery, diagnostic-yield in WGS-first programs, RNA-seq for VUS resolution
Population genetics & evolution	Demographic history, archaic admixture, selection scans, gnomAD updates (v5 expected), pangenome HPRC, ancestry inference
Statistical genetics / GWAS / PRS	Biobank-scale association, fine-mapping, PRS construction methods, cross-ancestry transferability, multi-omic Mendelian randomization
Cancer genetics (cancer-genomics overlap track)	Hereditary-cancer panel design, germline-somatic integration, somatic mosaicism callers, clonal hematopoiesis (CHIP/CCUS), cancer-PRS, universal-testing debate
Prenatal / reproductive genetics	NIPT updates, expanded carrier screening, fetal sequencing, preimplantation testing
Clinical genetics & diagnostics	Long-read clinical sequencing, structural variant calling in clinic, RNA-seq for variant interpretation, automated variant interpretation pipelines
Bioinformatics / computational methods	Variant calling, imputation, single-cell genetics, machine-learning variant effect predictors, foundation models for genomics
Functional genomics	CRISPR screens, MPRAs, base-editor saturation mutagenesis, perturb-seq, deep-mutational scanning
ELSI	Return of results, ancestry / identity, genetic privacy, AI ethics in genomics
Education, Training, Workforce, Policy	Trainee programs, advocacy, federal funding landscape, diversity in genomics

Anticipated cancer-genomics highlights (expected, program not yet public)¶

Cross-cutting prediction for the cancer-genomics subset we care about most:

1. Polygenic risk scores (PRS) in oncology — cross-ancestry transferability¶

Expected updates from Mavaddat / Pharoah-aligned consortia on breast-cancer PRS transportability and clinical integration
Prostate-cancer PRS updates anchored on UK Biobank + MVP; potential clinical-utility readouts that seed downstream ASCO trial-stratification work
Colorectal / pancreatic PRS — emerging cohorts, particularly cross-ancestry validation
Methods: PRS-CSx, SBayesRC, BridgePRS, and successors

2. Hereditary-cancer panel design — VUS classification at population scale¶

gnomAD v5 release (expected at ASHG) will re-baseline allele frequencies, potentially reclassifying VUSes in BRCA1/2, MMR, ATM, PALB2, CHEK2 etc.
Universal-testing-for-cancer evidence — increasing call for tumor-agnostic germline testing in newly-diagnosed cancers; ASHG is where the prevalence data drops first
Variant interpretation automation — foundation-model variant-effect predictors (AlphaMissense, EVE, ESM-3 successors) at clinical decision-point

3. Somatic mosaicism and clonal hematopoiesis (CHIP/CCUS)¶

Population-scale CHIP prevalence updates from All of Us, UKB, MVP — feeds into ASH 2026 MDS/AML pre-disposition talks
MN-predisposition syndromes (DDX41, RUNX1, GATA2) variant-classification updates
Methods: deepMosaic, MosaicHunter, MosaicForecast updates; UMI-error-corrected sequencing applications

4. Large-cohort sequencing — All of Us + UK Biobank cancer-genomics co-readouts¶

All of Us v8 release with pan-cancer germline-somatic overlay (expected)
UK Biobank 500k WGS mature data — cancer-incidence-linked germline analyses
Million Veteran Program cancer-genomics module updates
Coordinated cross-biobank meta-analyses via GBMI (Global Biobank Meta-analysis Initiative)

5. Foundation-model variant effect predictors for cancer¶

AlphaMissense follow-on methods; cancer-specific training-set fine-tuning
DNA-language models (Evo / Caduceus / Genome-LM successors) applied to non-coding cancer variants
Cross-link target: AACR 2026 ML-bio sessions, ISMB 2026 deep-learning track

Award-lecture watch list (expected, recipients not yet announced as of May 11, 2026)¶

ASHG awards typically announce ~3–4 months pre-meeting (July–August). Update this list when announced.

Award	Stature	Typical slot	Cancer-genomics relevance
William Allan Award	Society's highest honor; career-achievement	Plenary (Wed evening, traditionally)	Variable — Allan winners are field-defining; published as essay in AJHG
Curt Stern Award	Mid-career investigator; landmark contribution in last 10 years	Plenary	Often goes to methods or rare-disease investigators; cancer-overlap variable
Victor A. McKusick Leadership Award	Lifetime leadership and service to the field	Plenary	Variable
Mendel Lecture	International keynote (often European / Asian society partner)	Plenary	Variable
Advocacy Award	Public-policy / advocacy contribution	Featured plenary slot	Indirect
Early-Career Award	First-decade investigator	Featured slot	Variable
Trainee Research Excellence Awards	Multiple winners; oral and poster	Featured Plenary Abstract sessions	Often high-signal; specific abstracts to flag once announced
AJHG Award for Outstanding Trainee Publication	Best trainee-authored AJHG paper	Award reception slot	Variable
Gruber Genetics Prize	Field-defining contribution (presented by Gruber Foundation at ASHG)	Plenary	Often high-profile international laureate

Cohort / consortium update watch list¶

Anchor talks where the dataset itself is the news:

[ ] All of Us Research Program — v8 data release status; cancer-genomics module
[ ] UK Biobank — 500k WGS finalization; proteomics + metabolomics integration
[ ] gnomAD v5 — release timing, structural-variant call-set, mitochondrial inclusion
[ ] GREGoR Consortium — unsolved-rare-disease cohort, automation pipelines
[ ] Million Veteran Program — WGS scale-up; cancer-genomics module
[ ] FinnGen — R12 / R13 release; cancer endpoints
[ ] GBMI — Global Biobank Meta-analysis Initiative cross-biobank readouts
[ ] H3Africa — cancer-genomics arm; expansion plans
[ ] GenomeAsia 100K — cancer-PRS cross-ancestry transferability
[ ] Pangenome HPRC — clinical applications, panel-design impact

Key dates checklist¶

[x] Abstract submission opens — early March 2026
[ ] Abstract deadline — May 18, 2026 (1 week from this writing)
[ ] Hotel reservation open to members — May 11, 2026 (today)
[ ] Award recipients announced — typically July–August 2026
[ ] Program-at-a-glance public — typically early-September 2026
[ ] AJHG abstract supplement publishes — typically September 2026
[ ] Early-bird registration closes — August 12, 2026
[ ] Pre-meeting workshops — October 20, 2026
[ ] Plenary opening + Presidential Address — October 20, 2026 (evening)
[ ] Annual Meeting full program — October 21 – 24, 2026
[ ] Post-meeting on-demand replay window — ~30 days post-meeting

Next actions¶

Now → May 18: monitor abstract-deadline-day press from major sponsoring labs / consortia (often labs tweet preprints around the deadline).
July–August: capture award announcements; convert award stubs to populated talk pages.
Early September: when program-at-a-glance drops, expand talks/index.md master table from speculative shortlist to actual session-keyed entries. Prioritize the cancer-genomics-relevant subset (~30–50 talks).
Mid-September (AJHG supplement): add AJHG DOIs / abstract numbers to each populated stub.
Live meeting (Oct 20 – 24): day-by-day digest capture (deferred directory; see index.md for layout).