Letter from the Editor

Dear Reader,

Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 pandemic the Annual EHA “in person” meeting scheduled to be held in Frankfurt had to be replaced by a virtual one. Although I missed the friendship and personal interactions with my colleagues, I was happily surprised by the way EHA organised this virtual meeting on such short notice. The format of this virtual meeting was outstanding, and I enjoyed the many live sessions as well the sessions on demand. The quality of the science was very well maintained and many novelties presented were really worthwhile to summarise. Therefore, it is my great pleasure to introduce this peer-reviewed EHA25 Medicom Conference Report. We have selected a number of interesting abstracts from this years’ EHA meeting that will probably 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.

Many papers on Immunotherapy varying from bispecific antibody, immune checkpoint inhibitors, and CAR T-cell treatment in all kinds of haematological malignancies were presented during this meeting. New treatment modalities rapidly develop in AML, a disease that hasn’t seen any progress for a long time. You will find some interesting abstracts in the report. In other malignancies as well as in benign haematological diseases much progress has been made in basic, translational and clinical science. You will find snapshots of all these new modalities in this report. I am sure that you will enjoy.

Gert Ossenkoppele

 

Biography

Professor 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 (www.amlglobalportal.com).

 

Conflicts of interest

Professor 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’s 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 9 September, 202022 February, 2021