Letter from the Editor

Dear Reader,

It is my pleasure to introduce this peer-reviewed EHA 2021 Medicom Conference Report. We all miss the in-person meetings due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This year’s annual EHA meeting also had to be held virtually. Nevertheless, 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 a number of interesting abstracts that are likely to change your practice now or in the near future. The abstracts are summarised in a way that the information is easy to digest in a rather short time.

The increase of abstracts we have observed at previous meetings on immunotherapy including bispecific antibody and CAR T-cell treatment applied in a variety of haematological malignancies was maintained. Also, gene therapy is now rapidly moving from bench to bedside, resulting in new treatments for haemoglobinopathies and haemophilia. Treatment of AML, a disease in which no new developments emerged for a long time, is rapidly changing with the development of new effective targeted treatments and successful maintenance treatment with epigenetic agents. But also in the other haematological malignancies, new drugs are rapidly developed and approved by the regulatory authorities. Special attention is given to COVID-19 related problems.

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

 

Best Regards,

Gert Ossenkoppele



Biography

Prof. Gert Ossenkoppele was appointed in 2003 as professor of Haematology at the VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam, now named Amsterdam UMC, location VUMC. Gert Ossenkoppele has authored over 420 publications in peer-reviewed journals and is an invited speaker at many international scientific meetings. His research interests are mainly translational and include the (stem cell) biology of AML, leukemic stem cell target discovery, immunotherapy, and measurable residual disease (MRD) detection using flow cytometry to inform treatment of AML. He is the PI of various clinical trials in myeloid malignancies. He chairs the AML working party of HOVON (Dutch-Belgian Haematology Trial Group) He is 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 appointed as chair of the EHA Educational Committee. He just stepped down as chair of the AML Scientific working group of EHA, and he is chair of the Global and EU steering committee of the AMLGlobalPortal, an educational portal for haematologists.

Conflicts of Interest

Prof. Gert Ossenkoppele is a member of research support for Novartis, J&J and BMS-Celgene. He functions as a consultant for J&J, Daiichi-Sanyko, BMS-Celgene, Servier, and Roche. Lastly, he is a member of the advisory boards of Novartis, Pfizer, Abbvie, J&J, Daiichi-Sanyko, BMS-Celgene, AGIOS, Amgen, Astellas, Roche, Jazz pharmaceuticals, and Merus.



Posted on 5 August 20215 August 2021