St. Anna CCRI goes EHA 2022

(Vienna, 18.6.2022) We have been very excited to attend Europe’s largest conference on hematology here in Vienna: The European Hematology Association (EHA) Hybrid Congress took place from June 9-17 2022 and provided over 1,400 posters, 180 scientific sessions and more than 2,200 selected abstracts. On site, we asked our leadership about their impressions and highlights and got the chance to congratulate our Scientific Advisory Board member Shai Izraeli on winning the EHA Education and Mentoring Award. Additionally, Raúl Jiménez Heredia reports on our own data about hereditary spherocytosis, which he presented at the congress. >> See videos below.

St. Anna CCRI Scientific Director Kaan Boztug shared recent news and trends in the fields of cancer predisposition, immunodeficiencies and bone marrow failure syndromes.

Raúl Jiménez Heredia, Technical Assistant in Kaan Boztug’s group at St. Anna CCRI, summarizes his EHA poster presentation on hereditary spherocytosis in a video statement.

“Our study is the first one describing genomics and genotype-phenotype correlation in patients with hereditary spherocytosis in Central-Europe.”

“We identified causative variants in 94% of 69 patients, including atypical disease causing genetic findings such as intronic and copy number variants. This evidenced the compelling need of a combination of standardized NGS analysis and clinical deep investigation in order to accurately characterize and treat hereditary spherocytosis”, explains Raúl Jiménez Heredia.

Abstract discussed in this video:

Raúl Jiménez-Heredia et al., Abstract P1531, Heterogeneity of disease-causing genotypes between families with hereditary spherocytosis: a single-center cohort study

St. Anna CCRI Scientific Advisory Board member Shai Izraeli receives the 2022 EHA Education & Mentoring Award! In a video statement he explains that mentoring works in circles for which he is the best example.

Having been a mentee at St. Anna CCRI himself Shai Izraeli now heads the Division of Pediatric Hematology-Oncology at Schneider Children’s Medical Center, Tel Aviv. “Now I hope to close the circle: I already have a collaboration with Kaan Boztug. And our institutes have a lot of things to potentially collaborate, both in the clinical site and mainly in the research site,” Shai Izreali points out.

Leo Kager, Head of St. Anna CCRI, gave a summary of our own data and commented on one of his personal congress highlights – the first-in-human CRISPR-Cas-treatment of sickle cell disease and thalassemia major.

Abstracts discussed in this video:

Daniel Mayr et al., Abstract P1408, Monoallelic and biallelic germline mutations affecting the transcription factor helios cause pleiotropic defects of immunity. (St. Anna CCRI)
Wolfgang Novak et al., Abstract P1046, Severe complications in JAK2 V617F positive pediatric patients with myeloproliferative neoplasms. (St. Anna Kinderspital)
Raúl Jiménez Heredia et al., Abstract P1531, Heterogeneity of disease-causing genotypes between families with hereditary spherocytosis: a single-center cohort study. (St. Anna CCRI)
Franco Locatelli et al., Abstract LB2367, Efficacy and safety of a single dose of CTX001 for transfusion-dependent beta-thalassemia and severe sickle cell disease (Sapienza Università di Roma)

Behind the scenes

Shai Izraeli (St. Anna CCRI Scientific Advisory Board Member), Kaan Boztug (St. Anna CCRI Scientific Director)

Video produced by: Oliver Eberhardt/ filmduene.de
Photos: Robert Jungwirth
Editor: Anna Egger