Chairperson and committee
Chairperson: Nicole Thornton (UK)
Vice Chair: Sofia Lejon Crottet (Switzerland)
Secretary: Sue Johnson (USA)
Treasurer: Peter Ligthard (Netherlands)
Chair Emeritus: Sandra Nance (USA)
Membership
The full Working Party (WP) membership is currently 42 ISBT members, representing 24 countries
- A new executive committee (Chair, Vice Chair, Secretary, Treasurer) for 2024 - 2028 was elected during the reporting period.
- Six members retired from the WP and three new members joined the WP in this reporting period.
- As of 31 March 2025, the full Working Party (WP) consists of 42 members representing 24 countries across six continents: 8 from North America, 3 from South America, 14 from Europe, 1 from Africa, 13 from Asia, and 3 from Oceania.
- The liaison persons with other Working Parties are as follows:
- Vered Yahalom (Israel), Chair of the WP on Rare Donors
- Catherine Hyland (Australia) and Christoph Gassner (Switzerland), Co-Chairs of the WP on Red Cell Immunogenetics and Blood Group Terminology
- The ISBT Board liaison person is Jill Storry, ISBT Vice President
- The WP has five focus subgroups, each with an assigned subgroup leader:
- Serology Testing – Peter Ligthart
- Molecular Testing – Lilian Castilho
- Staff Education & Training – Sue Johnson
- Immunohaematology (IH) Reagents – Sofia Lejon Crottet
- Quality Assurance & Accreditation in the IH Laboratory – Kamini Khillan
Meetings and Teleconferences
Two meetings of the Executive Committee took place (April 28, 2023 and May 11, 2023) to organise the full business meeting of the WP, held at the Gothenburg ISBT Congress on June 17, 2023.
Five new members were officially elected at this business meeting. 18 members were present and 15 attended by videoconference. Eight guests attended the meeting.
Activities during the period
A videoconference between the Chair and Vice Chair of the WP was organised on October 25, 2023 to make a WP session proposal for the main scientific program of the ISBT Congress 2024 (Barcelona, Spain). Two 75-minute session proposals were submitted. One was accepted by the ISBT scientific committee as a Workshop, entitled “Complex cases in the immunohaematology reference laboratory”.
A budget request for educational purposes was proposed in January 2024 (immunohaematology training travel grant in an established laboratory), which was accepted by the ISBT Board.
