Chairperson and committee
Executive committee members:
Co-chairs: Christoph Gassner (Austria) and Catherine Hyland (Australia)
Vice-Chair: Nicole Thornton (UK)
Secretary: Margaret Keller (USA)
Treasurer: Thierry Peyrard (France)
ISBT Board Liaison: Yan Ji (China)
Cell-free (cf)DNA Subgroup: Frederik Banch Clausen (Denmark)
WP member appointments:
Education officers: Vanja Crew (UK) and Peter Ligthart (The Netherlands)
ISBT supported role: Co-ordinator / Curator: Harry Obergasser (Austria)
Membership
The RCI & BGT working party currently comprises 34 members representing 16 countries. Five new members were elected to the party in 2024: welcome to Yann Fichou (France), Genghis Lopez (Australia), Gorka Ochoa (USA), Kshitij Srivastava (USA), Sunitha Vege (USA).
Meetings and Teleconferences
Business Meetings
Two formal business meetings were held in the last year:
The first was at the ISBT International Congress in Barcelona, held at the ISBT congress in Barcelona, Spain, on 23rd June, 2024. There was a high attendance with 33 members present (including four via zoom) and 10 guests. Two new blood group system comprising a total of 2 antigens were acknowledged and registered at the Barcelona meeting. After extensive scientific review and discussion, the new blood group system was designated ISBT 046 or ATP11C and 047 or MAL. In addition the two new antigens SCAB and BROS were assigned to the SC and CTL2 blood group systems, respectively. To date the ISBT now registers 47 blood group systems with a total of 366 antigens.
The second business meeting was the 8th virtual, held in September 2024 to deal with working party project, nomenclature and procedural business matters. Members also heard updates from the cell-free DNA subgroup and special projects, particularly that related to the development of the Blood Group Allele Database (see report below).
Other meetings
The tradition of holding a genomic workshop meeting during the ISBT congress continued in Barcelona where Nick Gleadall introduced the blood group allele database to attendees. This focused on the features and applications of this Blood Group Allele Database (see below).
The Executive continue to meet in between the ISBT congresses, on average every four months. The Co-chairs continue with informal WhatsApp discussions on a near weekly basis, allowing for holidays.
Activities during the period
Cell-free DNA subgroup
Chair of the Cell-free (cf)DNA Subgroup: Frederik Banch Clausen and Asa Helberg conducted a workshop at the Barcelona Congress and provide a resource for laboratories establishing fetal cfDNA blood group assessments.
Transfusion Today
Six members of the working party volunteered to contribute to a special Focus Edition of the ISBT publication, Transfusion Today, published in October. Thank you to Fredrik Clausen, Bill Flegel, the education officers, Peter Ligthart and Vanja Crew, Jill Storry and the Young Professional representative, Nysa McGowan for their contributions.
Major Project Blood Group Allele Database progress: Management of the ISBT Blood Group Tables for Systems, Antigens and Alleles.
The ISBT Board have sponsored a major project to develop an electronic database for continued curation of all blood group systems, antigens and alleles. These will replace the fixed format pdf tables which provide an open access resource tabulating all blood group allelic variants that impact on blood group antigen expression and therefore have a potential clinical significance.
As noted in the last report, the diverse array of genetic alleles, over 1800 alleles, associated with the blood group systems antigens the project will see all the tables, currently in fixed pdf format, on the ISBT web site transition to an electronic format. The development of the database by Bloodomics Ltd. and financed by the ISBT is in the final stage of testing and will be available by the ISBT congress in Milan. All members participated in reviewing the entries in the database before Christmas. A smaller subgroup of members is currently reviewing the various functional aspects of the database. We again acknowledge the co-ordinator and curator, Harry, who contributed significantly to quality control checking during the development of the database over the last 12 months. The working party also acknowledge the commitment and support from the Executive Office and Board.
Acknowledgments
A special thank you to Harry Obergasser whose tenure ceased on the 31st of March. Harry has been dedicated to the coordination of uploading the blood group system, antigen and allele tables over the last 6 years and has been based with Christoph in Liechtenstein. This role will now be continued by Caroline Hochheuser who has been appointed the Science and Education Officer and is part of the ISBT Amsterdam office team. A handover between Harry and Caroline was conducted in March over a 3 day meeting in Amsterdam.
We thank the Executive Director, Jenny White, for her guidance and support for the above activities and thank staff at the ISBT office for their support. A very sincere thank you and acknowledgement to all members of the working party for their ongoing support and tireless efforts to maintain the curated tables on the web site. These tables continue to serve as an open resource for the Transfusion Community.
