About the conference

PittCell is a joint venture between Pitt and CMU, featuring talks from local faculty and trainees working on cell biology and related fields. Historically, the meeting was called 'Local Traffic', reflective of the density of researchers in Western PA who were interested in membrane trafficking. Over time, the conference has attracted a broader range of topics and thus we have rebranded this meeting to be called PittCell. 

This will be the twenty-fourth iteration of this annual meeting and will be held Tuesday, May 5th 2026 at the Mellon Institute. 

Dr. Jeanne Stachowiak from UT Austin will give the keynote address. Dr. Stachowiak is a renowned cell biologist and biophysicist whose pioneering work on the physical mechanisms of membrane curvature and traffic has reshaped how we understand fundamental cellular processes like endocytosis and membrane remodeling. We will also have presentations by Drs. Afshin Beheshti (Center for Space Biomedicine, University of Pittsburgh) Bokai Zhu (Aging institute, University of Pittsburgh), Irene Kaplow (Department of Biological Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University) and Marcus Noyes (Department of Computational and Systems Biology). The conference will feature talks from established and new faculty members, and select trainee abstracts. 

The event will include a vendor show (fingers crossed for free swag!), and a poster session in the cloisters. If you are a vendor interested in sponsoring the meeting, please get in touch with the organizers.