SCHEDULE

We are excited to feature Michigan Medicine in Ann Arbor, Michigan and its successful journey to achieve comprehensive digital workflow for primary diagnosis in Anatomic Pathology. 

Thursday, December 10, 2026: Welcome Event

4:30 - 6:00 pm
 Cocktail and Hors d'Oeuvres Welcome Reception – Vanguard Hotel 

 

Friday, December 11, 2026: Sessions, Lab Tours, Evening Banquet

Time                Location                     Description                                                                                            
7:15-8:00 am   Vanguard Hotel           Registration and Breakfast                                                                                  
8:00-8:45 am Vanguard Hotel

"The Michigan Model: Building a Fully Digital Pathology Department at Enterprise Scale"

Dr. Ulysses Balis

James French Professor of Pathology Informatics, Director for the Division of Informatics, Michigan Medicine

Dr. Mustafa Yousif
Assistant Professor of Breast Pathology, Associate Director of Pathology Informatics Division, Director of Digital Pathology for the Department of Pathology, Michigan Medicine

Faculty Bio Here
9:00 am Vanguard Lobby Board Shuttle Buses for Lab Tour at North Campus Research Center
9:30-12:00 pm NCRC 

Michigan Medicine Lab Tours - "From Glass to Pixels: Inside Michigan Medicine's Digital Pathology Lab": Follow a specimen from the grossing bench to the pathologist's screen, then try signing out a case yourself.

- Follow a specimen's journey. Trace every step of Michigan's end-to-end workflow: grossing, specimen collection, staining and slide preparation, high-resolution digitization, and distribution. Watch a single tissue sample become a digital case ready for diagnosis.

- Behind every slide, a skilled technician. Watch our technicians at work up close. You'll see the precision and craft that happen long before a slide reaches a screen.

- Step into a fully digital reading room. Explore all-digital viewing stations adapted to 10 different subspecialties. Each one is configured around how that specialty reads its cases.

- Take the controls. Sit down at a live digital workstation with full sign-out capability. Navigate whole-slide images and zoom from tissue overview down to cellular detail, the same way Michigan pathologists work every day.
12:15 pm  NCRC Lobby Board Shuttle Buses to Return to the Vanguard Hotel
12:30-1:30 pm Vanguard Hotel Lunch
Session 1 - Developing scalable deployment of IMS and AI-driven pathology in enterprise environments
1:30-2:00 pm Vanguard Hotel          "The Last Mile: Building the Tools That Turn a Digital Pathology Platform into a Complete Workflow "

Dr. Ulysses Balis
James French Professor of Pathology Informatics, Director for the Division of Informatics, Michigan Medicine

Dr. Mustafa Yousif
Assistant Professor of Breast Pathology, Associate Director of Pathology Informatics Division, Director of Digital Pathology for the Department of Pathology, Michigan Medicine

Faculty Bio Here
2:00-2:30 pm  Vanguard Hotel

"From Concept to Report: A Practical Lifecycle Framework for AI-Based Clinical Assays"
Dr. Larissa Furtado
Director of the Division of Precision and Computational Diagnostics, Penn Medicine Pathology and Laboratory Medicine

Faculty Bio Here
2:30-3:00 pm Vanguard Hotel

Large-Scale Deployment of AI in a Non-Academic Setting (title forthcoming)
Dr. Juan Santo-Rosario
Chief Medical Officer of CorePlus

Faculty Bio Here
3:00-3:45 pm Vanguard Hotel Deep-Dive Panel with Speakers, Industry Leaders, and Panelists
3:45-4:10 pm Vanguard Hotel Refreshment Break
Session 2 - Lifecycle management for digital pathology systems: future-proofing the lab and establishing institutional significance
4:10-4:40 pm Vanguard Hotel         

"Interoperability in Action: Evolving and Building Onto Existing Pathology Infrastructure to Power Clinical AI"
Dr. Rebecca Rojansky 
Assistant professor and co-Director for Pathology Informatics, Stanford University

Faculty Bio Here
4:40-5:10 pm  Vanguard Hotel “Lifecycle Management in Digital Pathology: Replacing Platforms Without Replacing Progress”
Dr. Andrew Evans
Chief of Pathology at Mackenzie Health, Consultant in Genitourinary (GU) Pathology, Associate Professor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology at The University of Toronto

Jim Tsourgiannis, MBA, BSc

Director of Medical Imaging and Laboratory Services, Mackenzie Health

Faculty Bio Here
5:10-5:40 pm Vanguard Hotel

"Cytopathology in the Era of Disruptive Digital Pathology and Artificial Intelligence Technologies"
Dr. Keluo Yao
Assistant Professor, Pathology Informatics Physician Lead, and Cytopathologist, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and Enterprise Information Services at Cedars-Sinai

Faculty Bio Here
5:40-6:25 pm Vanguard Hotel          Deep-Dive Panel with Speakers, Industry Leaders, and Panelists
6:30-8:30 pm Vanguard Hotel Cocktails and Dinner Banquet

Saturday, December 12, 2026: Sessions and Closing

Session 3 - Hype, Hope, Horror, and the Here and Now: Exploring the promise of Agentic AI within the lab
8:30-9:30 am Vanguard Hotel Breakfast 
9:30-10:00 am Vanguard Hotel         

"Human Brilliance, Augmented: Building Agentic Workflows One Tile at a Time"
Dr. Matthew Cecchini
Associate Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Western University's Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Staff Pathologist at London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC)

Faculty Bio Here
10:00-10:30 am    Vanguard Hotel

"The Final Adaptation of Routine AI"
Dr. Jochen Lennerz
Medical Director for Pathology Innovation, Natera

Faculty Bio Here
10:30-10:45 am Vanguard Hotel Refreshment Break
10:45-11:15 am Vanguard Hotel

“Agentic AI in the pathology lab: From hype to practical implementation”
Dr. Jitin Makker
Assistant Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Director of Informatics for Anatomic Pathology, UCLA Health

Faculty Bio Here
11:15-12:00 pm Vanguard Hotel Deep-Dive Panel with Speakers, Industry Leaders, and Panelists
12:00-12:15 pm Vanguard Hotel Closing Remarks