A Lifetime of Achievement, Driven by Sheer Excitement: Dr. Richard Aster Receives 2019 Wallace H. Coulter Award
Richard Aster, MD, has been awarded the 2019 Wallace H. Coulter Award for Lifetime Achievement in Hematology. He is a professor in the departments of medicine and pathology at the Medical College of Wisconsin and a Senior Investigator at the BloodCenter of Wisconsin –...
Adopting T Cells in AML: E. Donnall Thomas Lecture and Prize Goes to Philip Greenberg
When Philip Greenberg, MD, was interviewed by Dr. Donnall Thomas, Nobel Prize laureate and past ASH President, for a position at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in the 1970s, he pitched what was then a zany idea. “I told him that bone marrow transplants were...
Shining a Light on Commitment to Hematology
Sriram Krishnaswamy, PhD, and Jeffrey Weitz, MD, FRCPC, are the recipients of the 2019 Ernest Beutler Lecture and Prize. Dr. Ernest Beutler’s first research publication in 1952 initiated his long-standing career in science and eventually hematology. His commitment to...
Final Flourish: Sensational Late-Breaking Abstracts
Each year on the final day of the ASH annual meeting, the Late-Breaking Abstracts (LBAs) Session presents novel, substantive, and groundbreaking research that was not available in time for the standard ASH abstract submission deadline. And if you are still looking for...
Presidential Symposium: Big Ideas for Big Data
“In God we trust. All others must bring data.” The amount of data generated from the dawn of humanity until 2003 was 5 exabytes. Since then, 5 exabytes of data are created every two days. There is no doubt that our ability to collect and store data has exponentially...
Two-Hits to Catastrophic
In 1971, Alfred Knudson, MD, PhD, originally formulated the two-hit hypothesis, which states that most genes require two mutations for a change to occur; this aided the medical community’s understanding of how tumors form. We now know that the two-hit hypothesis can...
A Disruptive Innovation?
“I just want to be a normal person, doctor,” Greg said, “but that’s not an option.” Greg, 58 years old, underwent hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) for high-risk acute myeloid leukemia (AML) three years ago using cells from his brother. The transplant...
Erythroferrone: A Bone to Pick with Thalassemia
If the results of the past five years are any indication, the era of gene therapy is truly at hand, and nearly 100 years after Thomas Cooley first described the skeletal and morphological changes of the disease in a pair of Detroit children, so, too, is a cure for...
Aging: Attack of the Clones
“Aging is not lost youth but a new stage of opportunity and strength.” — Betty Friedan (1921-2006) Blood cells originate from hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs). Adult HSCs are maintained in a quiescent state, a state necessary for preserving the self-renewal of stem...
Can Gene Editing Be the Cure for Severe Congenital Neutropenia? Plenary Shows Promise
Will gene editing offer a future cure for severe congenital neutropenia? In Sunday’s third Plenary presentation, Shuquan Rao, PhD, of Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, spoke of highly promising results coming from his work in the laboratory of...
Mosunetuzumab Shows High Activity in Relapsed B-cell Lymphoma Including Post CAR-T Relapses
Patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), who progressed on upfront chemotherapy, have a dismal survival of 6.3 months based on the results of the international SCHOLAR-1 study, as noted by Georg Lenz, MD, of the University Hospital Muenster, who introduced...
ASH Recognizes Representative Tom Cole and Leaders From NIDDK, Dr. Terry Bishop, and NCI, Dr. William Merritt
ASH will be presenting Representative Tom Cole (R-OK) with the 2019 Public Service Award, and former National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) Training and Hematology Program Director Terry Bishop, PhD, and former National Cancer...
Separated by an Ocean, Connected by Blood: The ASH-EHA Joint Symposium
In this era, riddled with concerns about building walls, ASH and the European Hematology Association (EHA) have maintained an unwavering bridge that allows for the exchange of intellectual cargo. ASH President, Roy Silverstein, MD, and EHA President, John Gribben, MD,...
Oh, How Far We’ve Come!
Since I was little, I’ve been surrounded by scientific intrigue. One of my first memories of the idea of moving genetic material into a person was from my early high school days. When discussing gene transfer, a classmate asked, “So, we could make people blue by...
Philip Greenberg, MD, to Present the 2019 E. Donnall Thomas Lecture
Monday at 9:00 a.m., Philip Greenberg, MD, of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and University of Washington in Seattle will be awarded the 2019 E. Donnall Thomas Lecture and Prize in recognition of his innovative contributions to the development of T-cell...
Follow Your Passion: Drs. William Eaton and Richard A. Larson Receive 2019 Henry M. Stratton Medal
William Eaton, MD, PhD, of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and Richard A. Larson, MD, of University of Chicago, are being presented with the Henry M. Stratton Medal. This award...
Mentorship As a Lineage and a Legacy: Drs. Michael DeBaun and Leonard Zon Awarded 2019 ASH Mentor Award
Michael R. DeBaun, MD, of Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, and Leonard Zon, MD, of Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital, are being recognized for their outstanding support and guidance with the ASH Mentor Award. Dr. DeBaun recalled growing up...
A Serendipitous Journey: Drs. Sriram Krishnaswamy and Jeffrey Weitz Awarded 2019 Ernest Beutler Lecture and Prize
The Ernest Beutler Lecture and Prize is named after Dr. Ernest Beutler, a past ASH president and physician- scientist with a remarkable career that spanned 50 years. This year, the award is being presented to Sriram Krishnaswamy, PhD, of the Children’s Hospital of...
With Diversity As a Priority, Everyone Wins
Griffin Rodgers, MD, of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) is awarded the 2019 ASH Award for Leadership in Promoting Diversity. Dr. Rodgers earned the prestigious recognition for his ongoing work on behalf of under-represented...
At the Intersection of Exhilaration and Dedication Dr. Emmanuelle Passegué Wins 2019 William Dameshek Prize
Emmanuelle Passegué, PhD, of Columbia University Irving Medical Center, has been awarded the 2019 William Dameshek Prize. This award is named after the late William Dameshek, MD, a past president of ASH and the original editor of Blood, and is awarded to an early- or...