Chairperson and committee
Chairperson: Brian Curtis (USA)
Education Coordinators:
Lilach Bonstein (Israel)
Gunalp Uzun (Germany)
Nomenclature Committee: Maria Therese Ahlen (Norway), Gerard Bertrand (France), Brian Curtis (USA), Ulrich Sachs (Germany), Wenjie Xia (China)
Membership
The Platelet Immunology Working Party (PIWP) currently has 31 lab members representing 19 countries. One lab in Japan was voted in as new member in 2024.
Meetings and Teleconferences
The PIWP conducted its Business Meeting June 23, 2024 at the 34th Regional ISBT Congress, Barcelona, Spain. Rachel Petermann, Brian Curtis, Eszter Herczenik (Netherlands) held zoom meeting to develop NIPT Survey, and distributed it to members 1-1-25. Zoom Meeting 12-12-24 with Behnaz Bayat (Germany), Brian Curtis, Jenny White (Netherlands), Lin Fung (Australia), Nelson Tsuno (Japan) to discuss possible merge of Granulocyte and Platelet Working Parties. Zoom Meeting 2-20-2024, Brian Curtis, Behnaz Bayat discussed GIWP-PIWP merger. Zoom Meeting 3-11-2024 PIWP and Granulocyte Immunology Working Party (GIWP) members discussed merger of the two WPs.
Activities during the period
Agenda discussed at the June 23, 2024 Business Meeting included, review and discussion of results from the 22nd International Platelet Immunology Workshop lead by Nuria Nogues (Spain), presentation by Rachel Petermann (France) on a proposed survey of ISBT members about Non-invasive Prenatal HPA Genotyping of cell-free fetal DNA, and a review by Brian Curtis on HPA nomenclature and results of CD36 antibody studies from the Workshop. PIWP members Brian Curtis, Gunalp Uzun, Lucie Richards (Canada), John Semple (Sweden), and Nelson Tsuno gave presentations at a session, June 26, 2024, of ISBT Congress in Barcelona - “Platelet Immunobiology - A focus on Platelet Immunology. The session was well attended. Several PIWP members attended a special session at ISBT Congress, Barcelona, June 26, 2024 entitled, Harmonization of HPA, RBC, HNA Nomenclature. Brian Curtis presented on HPA and HNA nomenclature. In Q1 2025, several Zoom meetings were held to discuss the possibility of merger between the GIWP and PIWP. To date, the majority of members in both WPs are supportive of a merger having similar interests and members. A single, larger WP could have advantages - overall more resources and potentially reduced costs for shipping Workshop samples. A vote by members from both WPs whether to merge or not will be conducted in April 2025.
