Specialty Tracks at #CPDD26

The CPDD Annual Meeting features a range of specialty tracks designed to highlight emerging and impactful areas in addiction science.

What to Expect from all tracks

• Small Group Sessions: Engage directly with leading scientists, advocates, and researchers in intimate, focused discussions designed for meaningful dialogue, co-learning, and mentorship.
• Career-Boosting Connections: Network with established investigators and peers advancing the track topic research, co-production methods, and that can open doors to collaborations, funding, and career advancement.
• Dedicated Poster Presentation Opportunity: Showcase your work in a session highlighting early career investigators and track topic scholars — designed for visibility and connection across the CPDD community. 

LIVED EXPIERENCE TRACK

The CPDD Program Committee is excited to introduce the Lived Experience Track —a new space dedicated to centering the voices, insights, and scientific leadership of people with lived and living experience (PWLE) of substance use and recovery. This track recognizes lived experience as a critical source of data and epistemic grounding that enhances validity, ethics, and impact of addiction science. 

The Lived Experience Track invites the addiction research community to expand our understanding of what counts as evidence — and who contributes to scientific discovery in shaping a more inclusive and translational future for the field. 

NEUROBURST TRACK

The CPDD Program Committee is thrilled to continue Addiction NeuroBurst — a bold new track launched last year and designed to spotlight addiction neuroscience research. Tailored especially for addiction neuroscience researchers, this track offers dynamic opportunities to grow your network, elevate your research, and connect with leaders shaping the future of the field. It specifically embraces neuroscience from human and preclinical domains and aims to encourage collaboration between these two critical research areas.

Don't miss this chance to plug into the future of addiction neuroscience.

REAL WORLD OF ADDICITION TRACK

Enhancing bi-directional translation across the addiction science pipeline 

The Real World of Addiction Track brings together clinicians, researchers, individuals with lived and living experience, and policymakers to strengthen the connection between addiction science and patient care. Led by Drs. Joao De Aquino and Justin Strickland, the track focuses on identifying the most important research questions and the best methods to answer them across the full pipeline from epidemiology and preclinical models, to human laboratory work, and clinical trials. 

The Presidential Keynote for this track will be delivered by Dr. De Aquino, who will present a clinical case-based lecture on major challenges to treatment success and how translational science can overcome them. The remainder of the program will engage the community in discussions about defining and measuring recovery outcomes, tailoring treatments to individual needs, and improving real-world implementation. A dedicated poster and networking session will foster partnerships that support science designed to work for the people who need it most.