Image by Fabienne McClanahan
BCI staff and students represented us once again at the American Society of Hematology meeting this month in San Francisco.
Our researchers report back on their experiences of this year's conference:
Dr Eleni Kotsiou: "The ASH meeting provided the ideal platform for me to present my work and network with other scientists in the transplantation field. I also had the opportunity to hear about the cutting-edge work from a variety of immunology and immunotherapy groups.
"My poster presentation attracted quite a lot of attention especially from transplant clinicians as we are the first group to report the impact of TNFRSF14 aberrations on immune responses after stem cell transplantation. I received extremely useful feedback and suggestions on how to take my work forward.
"Important advances in the field of experimental transplantation include: the identification of novel immune cell populations responsible gastrointestinal tractdamage during graft-versus-host-disease (a major complication of stem cell transplantation); and how testing for these cell populations soon after transplant could allow us to indentify patients at high risk of such severe complications."
Dr Li Jia: "As an academic member of staff, ASH was a great opportunity for me to encounter clinical and advanced research findings in the leukaemia and lymphoma fields. The conference was exciting and well attended.
Image by Dr Li Jia
"Thousands of haematologists gathered from all over the world, providing the opportunity to meet experts in our fields and discuss ssues regarding our respective research topics."
Dr Jennifer Edelmann: "This year's ASH meeting was my 4th. Last year was more or less a CLL ASH meeting, with novel gene mutations and drug development discussed, but this year's covered a wider range of topics. ASH always offers excellent education on fields you are less familiar with.
"The meeting is always an opportunity to network and push collaborative projects forward. Also, preparing my two poster presentations and discussing them with visitors during the poster session definitely helped me to critically revise some aspects of my own work. I also got ideas of where supplemental data might help me to achieve a comprehensive publication at the end of my project."
Fabienne McClanahan: "ASH is always an excellent meeting offering a unique opportunity to meet other researchers, to discuss your work, and to build and extend networks. This year's meeting was especially interesting for me as many abstracts and sessions were dedicated to immune checkpoint blockade, which is what I have focused on for much of my PhD.
"Several groups showed very promising and exciting results from clinical trials using PD-1 antibody blockade, and experts in the field discussed the potential and also unsolved questions relating to this topic, which made me realise the translational value of what I have been working on."
Left to right: Dr Caroline Besley, Dr Eleni Kotsiou and Dr Ciara Freeman during poster presentations
Did you see us at ASH? Get in touch in the comments if you would like to catch up with any of our researchers from the Centre for Haemato-Oncology
With thanks to Fabienne McClanahan
BCI staff and students represented us once again at the American Society of Hematology meeting earlier this month in San Francisco.
Read our researchers' reports of their experiences during this year's conference ...