Chairperson and committee
Chairperson:
Mickey Koh (UK/Singapore) until January 2023
Reinhard Henschler (Germany) from February 2024
Vice Chair: Christian Gabriel (Austria)
Secretary: Lacey Johnson (Australia)
Treasurer: Thierry Burnouf (Taiwan)
Additional Steering Committee members:
Joanne Tan (Australia)
Murilo Danflon (Brazil)
Nina Worel (Austria)
Josef Schwartz (USA)
Hans Vrielink (The Netherlands)
Membership
The Working Party has 14 members in the reporting period and now counts 36 members representing 17 different countries.
Meetings and Teleconferences
Our business meeting was held on the Gothenburg 2023 ISBT Congress. The discussions revealed a growing interest in dealing with preparatory apheresis for cellular therapies became evident. Also, the subgroups reported on their activities and several new members joined the group after attendance of the meeting.
Seven online meetings within the steering group were held. Topics covered were activity reports by the subcommittees, organization of workshops and budget, integration of the Young Professionals into the work on the website, webinars and webpage, strategies for the acquisition of new members, of young professionals.
Activities during the period
The subgroup on serum eye drops continued the workup of the workshop held in May 2022 in Vienna. The first manuscript with results was published in Vox Sanguinis in April 2023, and work on a second manuscript was started.
Christian Gabriel and Mickey Koh chaired the session on Cell Therapy and Design at the Gothenburg ISBT Congress. Mickey Koh gave a Meet-the-expert session, focusing mainly on collection of starting materials for cellular therapies. Reinhard Henschler took part at the Standing Commission of Ethics to develop ethical aspects for cell therapy and biotherapies.
A new Working Party Subgroup was founded. It deals with collection of starting materials for cellular therapies by apheresis and was established in close cooperation with the Working Party Clinical Transfusion. Yossi Schwartz, Nina Worel and Hans Vrielink engaged in the work, took responsibility and all joined the Working Partys Steering Committee. They formulated a mission statement and started to coordinate activities within the subgroup.
Two Young Persons (Joane Tan, Murilo Danflon) were appointed as Educational Liaisons and taken up into the steering group to cover work and coordination on educational activities. Updates on the website were accomplished.
A joint scientific session at the autumn 2023 AABB Meeting in Nashville was held on serum eye drops, which was organized jointly between the Working Parties on Cellular Therapies of AABB and ISBT. It was co-chaired by Christian Gabriel and Denese Marks.
A proposal for a Cell Therapy Session for the 2024 Barcelona Meeting was formulated and submitted.
The WP at the ISBT Central Office. From left to right: Yossi Schwartz, Hans Vrielink, Reinhard Henschler, Tanya Glatt (on screen), Christian Gabriel, Denese Marks, Mickey Koh, Katharina Schallmoser.
An in person meeting of the Working Party's Steering Committee was held in Amsterdam. In this meeting, adaptations of the terms of reference were prepared, mainly regarding organizational, planning and reporting structures. The work programs of the three subgroups for the period 2024-2025 were designed.
Several WP members were active in abstract reviewing for the Barcelona 2024 meeting.
A collection of six Transfusion Today Articles for the October 2023 Issue were contributed by Mickey Koh, Shiva Abbarzadeh and Denese Marks, Katharina Schallmoser, Christian Gabriel and Reinhard Henschler, introducing major themes covered by the WP.
