And The Winners Are …
ASH has announced the election of four new members to its Executive Committee for terms beginning after the 2018 ASH Annual Meeting in December. Martin S. Tallman, MD, will serve a one-year term as vice president, followed by successive terms as president-elect and president. Mark Crowther, MD, will serve a four-year term as treasurer, and Belinda R. Avalos, MD, and Arnold Ganser, MD, will serve four-year terms as councillor and international councillor, respectively.
"Drs. Tallman, Crowther, Avalos, and Ganser have been dedicated leaders within ASH through their work on various committees. I want to congratulate them on the results of the election," said ASH President Alexis A. Thompson, MD, MPH. "I look forward to their contributions to the path forward for ASH and its membership."
Dr. Tallman is the chief of the leukemia service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and a professor of medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City. He has been a member of ASH for 20 years and has served in various leadership roles representing the Society, most recently as an ASH councillor. He is completing a three-year term as the executive editor of Hematology, the Society's education program book, and he helped establish the ASH Meeting on Hematologic Malignancies in 2015 and continued to serve as co-chair through 2016.
"The most important issue facing hematology today is the remarkably rapid pace of progress in the discovery, dissemination, and integration of new knowledge," said Dr. Tallman. "I believe that my past leadership activities in ASH will enable me to effectively contribute to the strategic decision of the Executive Committee and further ASH's mission to promote research, clinical care, education, training, and advocacy in hematology."
Dr. Crowther is the chair of the department of medicine at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. He has been a member of ASH for 24 years and serves as the co-chair of the ASH Education Program for the 2018 ASH Annual Meeting. He previously served as the chair of the ASH Committee on Quality and as a member of the venous thromboembolism guideline coordination panel.
Dr. Avalos is the vice chair of the department of hematologic oncology and blood disorders at the Levine Cancer Institute and a professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has been a member of ASH for 25 years and has served as the chair of ASH's Committee on Promoting Diversity and as chair of The Hematologist Editor Search Committee.
Dr. Ganser is a professor of hematology and oncology and director of the department of hematology, hemostasis, oncology, and stem cell transplantation at Hannover Medical School in Germany and has been a member of ASH for 29 years. He has served as chair of the ASH International Members Committee and is the current co-chair of ASH's International Consortium on Acute Leukemias.
New Hydroxyurea Patient Resource from ASH
The American Society of Hematology (ASH) has released a booklet of general information about hydroxyurea, which is one of the few FDA-approved therapies for sickle cell disease (SCD). The online patient resource, created by a working group of providers, individuals living with SCD, and health literacy experts, explains what hydroxyurea is and how it works in patient-friendly language and includes real stories from people who have taken hydroxyurea.
Please visit hematology.org/SCD to download the resource and share it with patients and colleagues.
Congratulations to the 2018 Trainee Abstract Award Winners
ASH is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2018 Outstanding Abstract Achievement Award, who will be recognized for their accomplishments at the ASH Annual Meeting in San Diego. The award recognizes the highest-scoring abstracts in the categories of undergraduate student, medical student, graduate student, resident physician, and postdoctoral fellow.
"I commend these early-career researchers on their high-quality work and contributions to hematology," said ASH President Alexis A. Thompson, MD, MPH. "Presenting on a stage as large and visible as the ASH annual meeting is an important career milestone. The recipients of these awards should feel very proud of their achievement."
The following trainees will be recognized:
UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT
Jesus Garcia Garcia
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
5 Year Health Care Burden after Allogeneic Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation (HSCT): Impact of Graft Source
MEDICAL STUDENT
Rosalie Sterner
Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN
GM-CSF Blockade during Chimeric Antigen Receptor T Cell Therapy Reduces Cytokine Release Syndrome and Neurotoxicity and May Enhance Their Effector Functions
GRADUATE STUDENT
Camila Prieto
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY
RNA Binding Protein RBMX Is Required in Acute Myeloid Leukemia by Regulating the Transcriptional Activity of the Heterochromatin Protein HP1α
RESIDENT PHYSICIAN
Philipp Rauch, MD
Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA
Loss-of-Function Mutations in Dnmt3a and Tet2 Lead to Accelerated Atherosclerosis and Convergent Macrophage Phenotypes in Mice
POST-DOCTORAL FELLOW
Jun Chen, MD, PhD
Lund University, Lund, Sweden
Small Molecule Screens Identify CDK8-Inhibitors as Candidate Diamond-Blackfan Anemia Drugs
MARY RODES GIBSON MEMORIAL AWARD IN HEMOSTASIS AND THROMBOSIS
This award was established to recognize the trainee who is the first author and presenter of the highest-scoring abstract submitted to the ASH annual meeting in the field of hemostasis and thrombosis.
Moua Yang, PhD
Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI
Platelet CD36 Promotes ERK5 and Caspase-Dependent Procoagulant Phosphatidylserine Externalization and In Vivo Fibrin Formation in Dyslipidemia
Please visit hematology.org/Awards to learn how ASH supports hematologists in all stages of their careers.
Sickle Cell Disease Clinical Trials Network Now Accepting Applications
The American Society of Hematology recently established the ASH Research Collaborative (ARC), a separate nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering collaborative partnerships to accelerate progress in hematology, with the goal of improving the lives of people affected by blood diseases. The first research initiative of the ARC, a Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) Clinical Trials Network (CTN) that aims to optimize the conduct of clinical trials research in SCD and improve the lives of people affected by the disease, is seeking clinical research sites at institutions interested in joining the Network.
The SCD-CTN will promote quality, patient safety, and efficiency in SCD clinical trials by centralizing functions and sharing best practices. Trial sites will work with the Network to increase patient understanding of clinical trials and trust in SCD researchers, eliminate inefficiencies through the centralized ARC Registry and institutional review board, and focus on the research opportunities that hold the most promise.
While traditional responsibilities for running a clinical trial will remain with the participating sites and industry, the SCD-CTN will address many of the common barriers faced in clinical trials research, including patient engagement and recruitment, site and sponsor matching, and research coordination.
The ARC will host a Q&A Reception about the SCD-CTN in Room 2 of the San Diego Convention Center from 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. on December 3, during the ASH annual meeting. Representatives of prospective research sites are invited to attend the session, where they will have a chance to have their questions answered directly by ARC leadership.
Letters of Intent to join the SCD-CTN will be accepted through January 31, 2019. Please visit ashresearchcollaborative.org for more information about the ASH Research Collaborative and to download the request for proposals.
Can't Come to the ASH Annual Meeting? Let the ASH Annual Meeting Come to You!
Not everyone will be able to attend the 60th ASH Annual Meeting and Exposition in San Diego, so ASH provides another chance to learn about the latest developments in hematology and hematology-oncology that could improve patient management and care strategies. Highlights of ASH® offers practitioners, fellows, academicians, and allied health professionals the opportunity to discuss some of the most rapidly evolving developments in the field. Attendees will hear leading experts present unbiased analysis of annual meeting abstracts and sessions, and will learn about evolving therapies, the latest treatment options, and their clinical applications.
Highlights of ASH in North America
January 11-12, 2019
San Francisco, CA
Washington, DC
January 18-19, 2019
Chicago, IL
Seattle, WA
January 25-26, 2019
Dallas, TX
New York, NY
Highlights of ASH in Asia-Pacific
February 23-24, 2019
Bangkok, Thailand
Highlights of ASH in the Mediterranean
March 15-16, 2019
Athens, Greece
Highlights of ASH in Latin America
April 5-6, 2019
Lima, Peru
Visit hematology.org/highlights to register now!
ASH Hosts MDS+AML MATTER Education Program
On October 19, ASH hosted the latest MDS+AML MATTER summit at its Washington, DC, headquarters, in partnership with the American Society for Clinical Pathology, the National Marrow Donor Program, the Oncology Nursing Society, and the France Foundation. The educational program provides learning opportunities for hematologists, oncologists, nurse practitioners, and other health care professionals involved in the diagnosis and management of patients with myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) and acute myeloid leukemia (AML). In particular, it addresses the many challenges faced by members of interdisciplinary care teams involved in diagnosing and treating patients with MDS and AML.
MDS+AML MATTER allows practitioners to earn Continuing Medical Education credit by engaging in multidisciplinary, interactive, small-group activities. In addition to live summits, the program provides virtual content, educational resources, and sessions at the ASH and ASCP annual meetings.
The next MDS+AML MATTER live summits will be held in January 2019 in San Francisco and New York. To learn more about the program and to register to attend, please visit mdsamlmatter.org.