Letter from the Editor

Dear reader,

It is my pleasure to introduce this peer-reviewed EHA 2024 Medicom Conference Report. The annual EHA meeting is still growing. This year’s number of attendants was 15.000 in person and another 2.000 virtually.  The Scientific Program Committee of the EHA has taken care of what, in my opinion, turned out to be a wonderful programme.

From this year’s EHA, we selected several interesting abstracts that will likely change your practice now or soon. The abstracts are summarised in a way that the information is easy to digest in a rather short time.

The number of new drugs steadily increases, resulting in a better prognosis for many haematological diseases. Many new combinations of these drugs were discussed during the meeting.

The increase in abstracts focussing on immunotherapy including bispecific antibody and CAR T-cell treatment applied in a variety of haematological malignancies, which we have observed at previous meetings, was maintained in this year’s event.  New treatments for haemoglobinopathies and haemophilia and other benign haematological disorders are rapidly being developed.

You will find snapshots of all these new developments in this report. I hope that these are helpful in your daily practice and I am sure you will enjoy.

Gert Ossenkoppele

 

Biography
Prof. Gert Ossenkoppele was appointed in 2003 as Professor of Haematology at the VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam. He obtained his doctorate of medicine at that same University in 1977. He is board-certified in Haematology and Internal medicine (1984). The title of his PhD thesis (1990) was: “Differentiation induction in acute myeloid leukaemia (AML)”. Gert Ossenkoppele has authored over 480 publications in peer-reviewed journals and is an invited speaker at many national and international scientific meetings. His research interests are mainly translational and include the (stem cell) biology of AML/myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), leukaemic stem cell target discovery, immunotherapy, and measurable residual disease (MRD) detection using flow cytometry to inform treatment of AML/MDS. He was the PI of national and international clinical trials in myeloid malignancies. He was associate editor of HemaSphere, the official journal of EHA and the European Journal of Haematology and regularly reviewed for many high-standard haematological journals (Blood, Leukemia, JCO, Haematologica, Oncotarget, NEJM). He recently rotated off as chair of the AML working party of HOVON (Dutch-Belgian Hematology Trial Group) and is past vice-chair of the HOVON Executive Board. He rotated off in 2024 as a lead participant of the AML Work package of the European LeukemiaNet (ELN) as well as a board member of the ELN foundation. He is the key opinion leader of WP2 AML of the HARMONY project. He rotated off as a board member of the European Haematology Association (EHA) and was chair of the EHA Educational Committee. He further rotated off as chair of the Global and EU steering committee of the AMLGlobalPortal an educational portal for haematologists (www.amlglobalportal.com).

Recently he retired and now functions as emeritus Professor of Haematology at the Amsterdam University, location VUmc.

In 2022 he received the Jean Bernard Lifetime Achievement Award at the EHA Annual meeting in Vienna.

Recently he stopped most of his professional activities.

Prof. Gert Ossenkoppele has no conflicts of interest to declare.



Posted on 12 August 2024