Submissions are now open for the 2026 Molecular Psychiatry Meeting
The Molecular Psychiatry Association will hold the 2026 Molecular Psychiatry Meeting
on March 29 – April 1, 2026 at the Royal Sonesta Kaua’i Resort in Lihue, Hawaii on the island of Kauai.
Symposia Submissions – Open
Deadline: August 15, 2025
Symposia Submission Instructions can be found here.
• Symposia are 2-hours in length. Each symposium must have a chair and a co-chair who may participate as speakers, but it is not required. There is no minimum or maximum number of speakers, although each symposium typically has 4 speakers. Chairs may include a panel discussion or other component to promote audience interaction.
• Symposia proposals are encouraged to have a molecular focus, but rigorous mechanism-focused proposals on other topics will also be considered. Symposia with speakers from different disciplines, who use different approaches, and/or have different perspectives (including clinical/translational perspectives) are highly encouraged.
• Proposals will be assessed for the topic (relevance and interest to the molecular psychiatry field), caliber and diversity of speakers (institution, career stage, demographics), and originality (e.g., presentation of new data, novel symposium topic, speakers have not presented together at previous conferences).
• Symposia presentations should be at a level that can be understood by people with different backgrounds to facilitate cross-fertilization of ideas. Chairs will be responsible for ensuring sufficient time for audience questions and fostering discussion among the symposia speakers and audience.
Travel Award Applications – Opening Summer
Deadline: October 1, 2025
Travel Award Submission Instructions can be found here.
There are two categories of travel awards:
- Students currently enrolled in PhD, MD, or MD/PhD programs.
- Postdoctoral fellows, medical residents, or junior faculty within 5 years of completing postdoctoral or residency training. Applicants may have a career development award (K-type) but may not be PI on a current or previous R-level grant (R03 and R36 grants permitted).
Please upload your CV or NIH biosketch, a half-page career statement and explanation of why this travel award would be beneficial for you, and one letter of recommendation that also confirms your eligibility (for graduate/medical student award, currently enrolled in PhD, MD, or MD/PhD program; for postdoc/resident/junior faculty award, currently a postdoctoral fellow or resident, or within 5 years of completing training). Both the career statement and recommendation letter should address the applicant’s financial need to attend the conference. Applications will be reviewed for contributions to the molecular psychiatry field that are appropriate for their career level, other activities that demonstrate high promise for future contributions to the molecular psychiatry field, and financial need. Preference will be given to those presenting a symposium talk or poster at the meeting.
Only young investigators receiving the awards will be notified in the fall. Awards for both types are for $2,000. Travel awardees must register for the conference (registration fees are not waived). A maximum of one travel award will be awarded to applicants who are supported by the same research lab. Previous awardees are ineligible.
Poster Submissions – Opening Summer
Deadline: November 5, 2025
Poster Submission Instructions can be found here.
The summary of the poster presentation should be no more than 250 words. This is a research-oriented meeting with a molecular/cellular/circuit focus. Purely phenomenological clinical posters without a molecular component may be rejected. Young Investigators (students currently enrolled in PhD, MD, or MD/PhD programs or postdoctoral fellows/medical residents/junior faculty within # years of training completion) are eligible to also present a brief talk in the poster talk session. Individuals who wish to be considered for a poster talk must indicate this in the submission portal. Abstracts selected for poster talks must also be presented as posters in a poster session. Notifications for posters and poster talks will be sent in December. Poster dimensions and poster numbers will be emailed after the first of the year.
If you have any questions, please email the MPA Meeting Organizers at info@molecularpsychiatry.net.