A Look Back on ISSCR 2026

They say you never forget your first international conference. They’re right. Last week, I attended ISSCR 2026 as an undergraduate student. I was admittedly nervous at the start, but by the time the end of the second day rolled around, and with it the all-attendee reception, all the ice had melted and the excitement was palpable.

Enough preamble. Let’s get into some of the topics discussed at the meeting. I’ve broken this down into four themes—though of course this was shaped by my own interests and the sessions I attended.

During his talk in the first plenary session, Shinya Yamanaka shared what he thought was the biggest breakthrough in the stem cell field in the 2010s: organoids.