Prof Dr Sébastien Anguille graduated summa cum laude as medical doctor in 2008 at the University of Antwerp in Antwerp, Belgium. After his graduation, he started a PhD fellowship for which he received funding from the Research Fund – Flanders (FWO) (Belgium) and the Flemish League against Cancer (Belgium). His PhD revolved around the development of an optimized dendritic cell vaccine for acute myeloid leukemia. This work led to several high-visibility publications in renowned journals, including Blood, Leukemia, PNAS and Lancet Oncology, and was awarded with prestigious grants, most notably an Endeavour Research Award in 2012, an award granted by the Belgian public utility foundation VOCATIO in 2012, and the 2018 Medical Prize of the Belgian Horlait-Dapsens Foundation. During his research career (first as a PhD student and currently as a postdoctoral researcher), he has built up extensive research expertise with immune cell therapies for hematological malignancies, including dendritic cells, NK cells and T cells (TCR- and CAR-modified T cells). Prof Anguille currently serves as a senior clinical investigator of the Research Fund – Flanders (FWO) (Belgium) and holds a 20% professor position within the Faculty of Medicine & Health Sciences of the University of Antwerp, Belgium. He combines these functions with a position as full-time staff member in the Division of Hematology of the Antwerp University Hospital, Antwerp, Belgium. His specific clinical expertise lies in the inpatient as well as the outpatient care of acute myeloid leukemia patients. In addition, Prof. Anguille serves as a principal investigator (mainly in the field of cellular immunotherapy) of several clinical trials running at the Division of Hematology of the Antwerp University Hospital.

Jane Apperley qualified in Medicine from the University of Birmingham in 1979 and completed specialist training in haematology in Birmingham, London and Cambridge. Throughout this time she developed an interest in stem cell transplantation (SCT), and by default in chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML), which was the primary indication for SCT in the 1990s. She spent two years as a post-doctoral fellow at the Children’s Hospital in Boston, USA, training in gene transfer and therapy. She returned to the Hammersmith Hospital in 1993, was given a personal chair in Haemato-Oncology in 2002, and became the Clinical Director for Clinical Haematology at the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, and the Chair of the Centre of Haematology at the Imperial College in 2003/4. Her interests remain the biology and management of CML, and her group at the Imperial College has extensive experience in the use of first, second and third generation tyrosine kinase inhibitors, particularly in the areas of molecular monitoring, mechanisms of drug resistance and adverse events. She has a long-standing interest in the impact of haematological diseases and their treatment on fertility, pregnancy and foetal outcome. She has been a member of the ELN CML Working Party since the creation of the ELN in 2004 and has been involved with the ELN Consensus Guidelines since the first recommendations in 2006, initially as the ‘expert’ in SCT. She has also been a member of the UK NCRI CML study group for >20 years. Some years ago this group recognised that there were issues in the management of CML peculiar to the UK because of the influence of NICE and the need for financial restraint, and under the leadership of Graeme Smith (Leeds) developed the current BCSH guidelines.

Frédéric Baron received a medical degree from the University of Liège (Belgium) in 1997. He completed a residency in medicine and a competency in hematology at the University of Liège. He worked one year as a doctoral fellow at the Institut Gustave Roussy (IGR), Villejuif, France, in Salem Chouaib lab. He received a PhD degree from the University of Liège in 2001. His postdoctoral training included a 3-year fellowship at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (FHCRC) in Seattle, WA, US, in Rainer Storb Lab. Dr. Baron joined the faculty at the University of Liège in 2007, and obtained a second thesis (“Agrégation de l’enseignement supérieur”) in Hematology in 2007. He is currently senior research assistant at the National Fund for Scientific Research (FNRS) Belgium. Dr Baron is currently leader of the cord blood subcommittee of the acute leukemia working party of the European Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation.

André Bosly is born on 24 April 1945 in Wandre (near Liège). He obtain Medical Doctor degree in 1969. Specialization in Internal Medecine in1974 and his PhD in 1996 (Thesis: progress in DLBCL). Competence in Clinical Hematology when approved by RIZIV/INAMI in 2001. Head of hematology department in CHU-UCL Namur Godinne until 2010. Associate Medical Director 2006-2010. President of BHS (1998-2000). Vice president of GELA and ELI (European Lymphoma Institute).

Dr. Dimitri Breems is currently working as a clinical hematologist at the department of hematology of the Hospital Network Antwerp (ZNA and consultant at the University Hospital of Antwerp. After studying medicine at the Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands, he proceeded with a PhD study entitled “Assessment and improvement of gene transfer into human hematopoietic stem cells” at the institute of hematology of the same university. He further specialized in internal medicine and hematology and worked as a clinical hematologist at the department of hematology of the Erasmus Medical Center Rotterdam before moving to Antwerp in 2006. His main research interests are novel treatments and cytogenetic prognostic factors in acute myeloid leukemia. Dr. Breems is board member of the Belgian Hematology Society (BHS) since 2016 and chair of the Acute Leukemia Committee of the BHS. He is also member of the international Steering Committee of the Leukemia working group of the Dutch-Belgian Hemato-Oncology Cooperative Group (HOVON).

Jan Cools obtained his PhD degree in 2001 from the KU Leuven with a study on chromosomal defects in leukemia. From 2001 to 2003 he continued his research on the genetic causes of leukemia at Harvard Medical School (Boston, USA). After return to Belgium, he was appointed as assistant professor in 2005 and full professor in 2009 at KU Leuven and since 2008 he is also group leader of VIB, a life sciences institute in Flanders. His research team studies the genetic complexity of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and uses that information to develop novel models of leukemia development and novel treatment strategies. For these studies the team is now using single-cell DNA and RNA sequencing to unravel the heterogeneity of ALL at diagnosis and during chemotherapy treatment. He has served as a board member of the European Hematology Association and has been the editor-in-chief of the open access journal Haematologica from 2012 to 2017 and is now editor-in-chief of a new open access hematology journal: HemaSphere (journal of the European Hematology Association).

Prof. Bérangère Devalet is graduated in hematology from UCL and is working as a clinical hematologist within the team of CHU UCL Namur (Godinne) since 2013. Her clinical activities take place in the field of general hematology and hemostasis. She published a doctoral thesis entitled “Implication of extracellular vesicles in thrombosis associated with paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria” in January 2020. Member of the Namur Thrombosis and Hemostasis Center, she participates in numerous research and collaboration projects with the Hematology Laboratory of CHU UCL Namur and the Pharmacy Department of the University of Namur. In parallel, she carries out a teaching activity within UCL.

Sascha Dietrich received his medical degree from the University of Jena in Germany. He completed residencies in Hematology and Emergency Medicine at the University Hospital of Heidelberg. Sascha Dietrich is currently the head of the University of Heidelberg's Lymphoma Service, Division of Hematologic and Oncology, where he is responsible for continuing to accelerate the translation of scientific discoveries into novel treatment strategies to improve treatment and survival of patients with non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL).His translational research focuses on functional role of critical signalling pathways in lympho- proliferative diseases (LPD) and to determine the biological basis for differential response to genotype specific treatments.

Prof. Ann Janssens is Head of Clinics in the Department of Hematology at Leuven University Hospital, Leuven, Belgium. She obtained her medical degree from the University of Ghent, before specializing there in hematology. In vitro apoptosis and clonal evolution in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) was the title of her doctoral thesis.

Manel Juan Otero, MD, PhD, Immunologist, Head of Immunology Service at Hospital Clínic de Barcelona. Nowadays, my main clinical and research work is in the field of immunotherapy, especially antitumor IT (DCs, TILs and CARTs) Associate Professor of Immunology in the University of Barcelona. Director of 10 doctoral theses (4 co-supervised). More than 140 Publications (global IF > 500 ). Pi 12 projects (total number 28 research projects), h-index: 35 (excluding self-citations).

Prof. Veerle Labarque obtained her medical degree in 2001 and further specialized in pediatrics and pediatric hemato-oncology. Her doctoral thesis was entitled “New Mechanisms of Disturbed G-protein Signalling Cause Platelet Dysfunction and Impaired Megakaryopoiesis” and she worked as a clinical fellow in pediatric thrombosis and hemostasis in the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto (Canada) for 1 year. Since her return to Belgium in 2011, she is working as Adjunct Medical Head in the Department of Pediatric Hemato-Oncology at the University Hospitals Leuven. Her research interest focusses on benign hematology and she is co-chair of the BHS Red Cell Disorder Subcommittee since last year.

Dr. María-Victoria Mateos, MD, PhD, is Consultant Physician in the Haematology Department and Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Salamanca, Spain. She is the director of the Myeloma Program and coordinates the Clinical Trials Unit in Salamanca’s University Hospital Haematology Department. She serves as coordinator of GEM (Spanish Myeloma Group), with direct involvement in the design and development of clinical trials.

Dr Vickie McDonald is a consultant haematologist with a specialist interest in coagulation and platelet disorders within the Department of Clinical Haematology at Barts Health NHS Trust. She completed her haematology training at Guys and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust and a PhD in Thrombotic Thrombocytopenia Purpura at University College London, following which she became a consultant in haemostasis and thrombosis at Guys and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust in 2012. In 2017, she moved to the Royal London Hospital working with patients with inherited and acquired coagulation disorders. Dr McDonald is the Trust lead for the VTE prevention targets and the aphaeresis service, in addition to running specialist clinics in ITP, TTP and cancer associated thrombosis. She is also an investigator on several trials, including international trials and collaborations with other units and is actively involved in several ITP clinical trials, both in early and late phase studies. Dr McDonald is the director for the UK Adult ITP Registry: a multi-centre study designed to collect clinical information, standard lab tests and investigational assays to look for associations between the presence of genetic variations and ITP development, severity and responses to treatment.

Toine Mercier graduated as a physician from the faculty of medicine at Leuven University, Belgium, in 2014. In 2020, he successfully defended his PhD thesis on rapid diagnostic methods for invasive fungal infections in hematology patients. Currently, he is in his final years as a resident in hematology at the University Hospitals Leuven, and combines his clinical training with ongoing post-doctoral research on opportunistic respiratory infections. He is an active member of several international infectious disease and hematology societies, and is the secretary of the Belgian Society of Human and Animal Mycology. He has been recognized as a Fellow of the Academy of the European Confederation of Medical Mycology for his work in research and education. His main interests are in supportive care, invasive fungal infections, diagnostic tools, bioinformatics and data science.

Hematologist and Geneticist focused on cytogenetic and molecular diagnostics of acquired (hematological) malignancies, supervising the Laboratory for Cytogenetic and Molecular Diagnosis at the Center for Human Genetics (UZ Leuven, KU Leuven).

I am currently Emeritus Reader in Autoimmune Haematology at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry in London, UK. I studied molecular biology at Leicester University, UK before completing my medical degree. After junior medical posts in the UK, I undertook research at The Dana–Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, USA on an American Travelling Fellowship awarded by the UK Medical Research Council.

Anita Rijneveld is hematologist, trained in Amsterdam Univeristy Medical Center and since 2006 working in the dep. of Hematology at the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam. Her specialties are acute leukemias, in particular ALL and hemoglobinopathies. She is chair of ALL working group within HOVON and is a member of the European working group on ALL (EWALL)

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Thomas Tousseynis a 44 year old pathologist from Belgium. He obtained his MD in 2001 at KU Leuven and his PhD in 2009 at the VIB (Bart De Strooper). He did postdoctoral research at the University of California San Francisco. He was trained as a haematopathologist by Christiane De Wolf-Peeters in Leuven and did a fellowship with Randy Gascoyne in Vancouver.

Prof. Jo Van Dorpe is head and director of the Department of Pathology of Ghent University Hospital (Laboratory for Cancer Diagnostics and Pathology). He is also senior full professor at Ghent University, where he teaches histology of the lymphoid tissues, histology of the nervous system, and mechanisms of disease (neoplasia) to medical students.

Erika Vlieghe has graduated at KU Leuven in 1996. In 1997 she did a postgraduate at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp. Accordingly she worked two years in Oeganda. From 1999-2004 she specialized in general internal medicine. Afterwards she teached at KU Leuven regarding antibiotic resistance in Cambodia.