HAI 2026
Dear colleagues, innovators, and friends,
HAI 2026 is now behind us–and I leave it with the same feeling I have carried from this meeting since its earliest days: gratitude, confidence in the science, and renewed respect for this community.
Over three days in San Juan, we did what HAI has always done best. We shared data that was genuinely new. We asked difficult questions. We debated interpretations openly and, at times, vigorously. And we did so in a setting that values clarity over spectacle and dialogue over declaration. That balance is not accidental–it is sustained by the people who choose to come, year after year, ready to engage seriously with the work.
What continues to distinguish HAI is not scale, but focus. Talks are brief by design. Discussion is protected by design. Posters are not peripheral; they are central. Mentoring is not symbolic; it is structured and intentional. These choices matter. They create the conditions in which ideas are tested, refined, and sometimes re-thought entirely.
This year’s meeting reinforced something I believe deeply: progress in Alzheimer’s imaging does not come from consensus alone. It comes from careful disagreement, methodological rigor, and the willingness to listen closely even when the answers are incomplete. That spirit was present in every session.
I am grateful to the speakers, chairs, poster presenters, mentors, and reviewers who invested their time and intellectual energy into this meeting. I am equally grateful to those attending for the first time, whose questions and perspectives continue to push the field forward. And I thank our sponsors and partners for supporting a meeting that prioritizes substance over scale.
HAI will continue. The conversations that began or resumed here will carry on in laboratories, clinics, and collaborations around the world. When we reconvene, we will do so with new data, new questions, and the same commitment to thoughtful, open scientific exchange.
Until then, thank you for making HAI what it is.
Warm regards,
Keith A. Johnson, MD
Human Amyloid Imaging Conference
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Time to Conference
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OBJECTIVES
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Data analysis procedures discussed will include voxel-based and region-based imaging approaches, masking for vulnerable regions, evaluation of reference regions or standards, choice of statistical procedures and specific use of control groups from older age groups. Important topics include data harmonization methods for imaging and biofluid biomarkers.
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Neuropathology concepts will be discussed in the context of applications that include further characterization of neurodegeneration in AD and related disorders, disease subtypes, disease staging, and risk factors. Additional investigations of importance include neuropathological evaluation of PET radiotracer properties (e.g., distribution, localization of specific and off-target binding) and correspondence between antemortem PET and postmortem measures.
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Biofluid biomarker development, validation, and application in AD and related disorders will be discussed. This will include efforts to understand relationships across established and emergent biofluid biomarkers and comparison of these outcomes to amyloid and tau PET measures.
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The concept of biomarker positivity will continue to be extensively discussed, and the attendees should be able to characterize the advantages and disadvantages of both dichotomized and continuous variable approaches to imaging and non-imaging biomarkers relevant to the human amyloid imaging field and with respect to specific purposes or intended uses of the outcome.
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Attendees will have the opportunity to evaluate amyloid and tau data in specific clinical and clinical research contexts, including review of typical findings in AD dementia, mild cognitive impairment due to AD, and in clinically normal individuals. This includes further elucidation of factors that underlie relationships between amyloid and tau deposition, cognitive decline, and dementia progression that provide a more informed understanding of individual patient trajectories. These efforts will also be related to familial forms of the disease, Down Syndrome, and to non-AD processes (i.e., fronto-temporal lobar degeneration and Lewy Body dementia). Further study of “real world” research participants will be discussed that includes people from diverse, ethnic and/or racial minority, and disadvantaged groups.
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Particular attention will be given to the assessment of longitudinal amyloid and tau PET data as it relates to methods of analysis and comparison to other domains of data, including structural and functional brain imaging data, and clinical and cognitive outcomes. An ongoing topic of importance is the relative value of PET versus other detection strategies (e.g., MRI volumetry and biofluid biomarkers).
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Attendees will also continue to have the opportunity the better understand methodology that can be used to optimize participant selection and conduct of AD therapeutic trials. Important topics relate to improved understanding of how in vivo metrics (imaging and non-imaging) and cognition change in response to AD therapeutic treatment (cross-sectionally and longitudinally) and how to better identify those most vulnerable to treatment side-effects, such as anti-amyloid related imaging abnormalities.
HAI 2026 Executive Committee
Keith Johnson, MD, Massachusetts General Hospital
Maria Carrillo, PhD, Alzheimer’s Association
Teresa Gomez-Isla, MD, PhD, Massachusetts General Hospital
Milos Ikonomovic, MD, University of Pittsburgh
Thomas Karikari, PhD, University of Gothenburg
Beth Mormino, PhD, Stanford University
Julie Price, PhD, Massachusetts General Hospital
HAI 2026 Theme Co-chairs
Suzanne Baker, PhD, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Tobey Betthauser, PhD, University of Wisconsin
Anne Cohen, PhD, University of Pittsburgh
Brad Christian, PhD, University of Wisconsin
Teresa Gomez-Isla, MD, Massachusetts General Hospital
Lea Grinberg, MD, Mayo Clinic
Ansel Hillmer, PhD, University of Michigan
Milos Ikonomovic, MD, University of Pittsburgh
Heidi Jacobs, PhD, Massachusetts General Hospital
Thomas Karikari, PhD, University of Pittsburgh
Susan Landau, PhD, University of California, Berkeley
Laetitia Lemoine, PhD, Perceptive
Beth Mormino, PhD, Stanford University
Melissa Murray, PhD, Mayo Clinic
Julie Price, PhD, Harvard Medical School
Gil Rabinovici, MD, University of California, San Francisco
Pedro Rosa-Neto, PhD, McGill University
Suzanne Schindler, MD, PhD, Washington University in St Louis
Henrik Zetterberg, MD, University of Gothenburg
HAI 2026 Young Investigator Award Judges
Hartmuth Kolb, PhD, Enigma Biomedical Group
Michael Pontecorvo, PhD, Avid Radiopharmaceuticals (ret)
Christopher Rowe, MD, Austin Health
Sandra Sanabria, PhD, Genentech
HAI 2026 Program Committee
Eric Abrahamson, University of Pittsburgh
Suzanne Baker, PhD, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Tobey Betthauser, PhD, University of Wisconsin
Rachel Buckley, PhD,Massachusetts General Hospital
Marianne Chapleau, PhD, Life Molecular Imaging
Brad Christian, PhD, University of Wisconsin
Anne Cohen, PhD, University of Pittsburgh
Tessa Harrison, PhD, University of California, Berkeley
Ansel Hillmer, PhD, University of Michigan
Kenji Ishii, MD, Tokyo Metropolitan Inst. of Gerontology
Milos Ikonomovic, MD, University of Pittsburgh
Clifford R. Jack, MD, Mayo Clinic
Heidi Jacobs, PhD, Massachusetts General Hospital
Thomas Karikari, PhD, University of Pittsburgh
Renaud La Joie, PhD, University of California, San Francisco
Susan Landau, PhD, University of California, Berkeley
Laetitia Lemoine, PhD, Perceptive
Beth Mormino, PhD, Stanford University
Melissa Murray, PhD, Mayo Clinic
Agneta Nordberg, MD, PhD, Karolinska Institute
Rik Ossenkoppele, PhD, VU University Medical Center
Julie Ottoy, PhD, University of Toronto
Julie Price, PhD, Harvard Medical School
Gil Rabinovici, MD, University of California, San Francisco
Dorene Rentz, PsyD, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Elena Rodriguez-Vieitez, PhD, Karolinska Institutet
Pedro Rosa-Neto, MD, PhD, McGill University
Stephen Salloway, MD, Brown University
Sandra Sanabria, PhD, Genentech
Suzanne Schindler, MD, PhD, Washington University in St Louis
Christopher Schwarz, PhD, Mayo Clinic
Reisa Sperling, MD, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Rik Vandenberghe, MD, PhD, KU Leuven
Victor Villemagne, MD, University of Pittsburgh
Sylvia Villeneuve, PhD, McGill University
Joseph Winer, PhD, Stanford University
Christina Young, PhD, Stanford University
Henrik Zetterberg, MD, University of Gothenburg
2026 EVENT AT-A-GLANCE
PODIUM PRESENTATIONS
40 podium presentations were selected from 202 submitted abstracts featured over 3 days.
GUEST LECTURES
Joyita Dutta
Nick Seyfried
Dietmar Thal
POSTER SESSIONS
144 poster presentations in 3×2 sessions.
PANEL DISCUSSIONS
9 podium presentation sessions were each followed by 20 minute panel discussions and Q&A sessions.
BLITZ PRESENTATIONS
17 blitz presentation sessions.