From Central Office
ISBT-sponsored Workshop on Cellular Therapies in Prague
Hans Vrielink and Nina Worel
The mission of the Working Party on Cellular Therapies of the International Society for Blood Transfusion (ISBT) is to raise awareness of cellular therapies and support their improvement globally within Transfusion Medicine. This shall be reached, amongst others, by organizing webinars and specific workshops for interested persons.
The European Society for Apheresis (ESFH) organized it’s biannual scientific meeting from 8 to 10 April 2026. This joint meeting with the Austrian Apheresis Association (triple-A) and Czech organizing committee was organized in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic. Because of the high overlap of interests and shared goals, the chairs of subgroup Apheresis of the ISBT Cellular Therapies working party (Nina Worel, Joseph (Yossi) Schwartz and Hans Vrielink) requested the ESFH to co-organize a joint workshop on April 10, 2026, the last day of the ESFH meeting. In co-operation with the WP chairs, the scientific committee composed an interesting program with internationally well-known and also young professional speakers.
Because of the high overlap of interests and shared goals, the chairs of subgroup Apheresis of the ISBT Cellular Therapies working party (Professors Nina Worel, Joseph (Yossi) Schwartz and Hans Vrielink) requested the ESFH to co-organize a joint workshop on April 10, 2026, the last day of the ESFH meeting. In co-operation with the WP chairs, the scientific committee composed an interesting program with internationally well-known and also young professional speakers.
Silvia Monsalvo (Madrid, Spain) chairing the session with Marleen Neyrinck, RN giving her presentation
Audience including Miguel Lozano from the chair’s perspective
Approximately 130 participants listened to the speakers presenting an update on amongst others cellular therapies, including CAR-T cell therapy, Gene therapy in Sickle Cell Disease, Thalassemia and Hemophilia. On the workshop day, particular attention was given to cutting edge themes in the field:
- Cell collection for CAR-T cell treatment by apheresis was covered by Nina Worel (Vienna, Austria) and Silvia Monsalvo (Madrid, Spain). Important insights and points made were the necessity of well-planned washout times of previous therapies and T cell collection, and the composition of T cell subpopulations which are needed for a successful CAR T production.
- A particular focus was laid on the collection of hematopoietic stem cells (HSC) for up-to-date transplantation schemes in pediatric patients. This included techniques to reliably collect the increasingly high numbers of CD34 positive cells needed for gene transduction in sickle cell and thalassemia patients in increasingly younger kids, discussed in presentations by Marleen Neyrinck (Roeselare, Belgium) and by Volker Witt (Vienna, Austria). A presentation about updating the guidelines of European and American Apheresis Societies (ASFA and ESFH) was taken over by Hans Vrielink (Almere, The Netherlands).
- The collection of sufficient numbers of CD34 positive cells in poor mobilizers is still a major issue for the success of transplantation therapies in selected patients. This was addressed by Miquel Lozano (Barcelona, Spain). Other projects of the ISBT Cellular Therapies Working Party were presented by doctors Leitner (Vienna, Austria), Bueno Cabrera (Madrid, Spain) and Gabriel (Linz, Austria) who gave state of the art lectures on eye drops of human origin and human platelet lysate. All in all, a very successful day organized by the Apheresis subgroup of the ISBT Cellular Therapies Working Party that is certainly worth repeating.
Nina Worel (Vienna, Austria) and Hans Vrielink (Almere, The Netherlands)
