Message from Nicolaus Kröger, EBMT President
Dear EBMT members and friends,
Today, the all-virtual 62nd ASH Annual Meeting is coming to an end. It has brought us many new exciting results which help us to improve the treatment of our patients as well as inspiring new ideas for basic and translational research in our labs. The ASH meeting, similar to other larger scientific meetings this year, such as our EBMT Annual Meeting, was performed as a completely virtual event, which reminds us about the ongoing Corona pandemic that has impacted and changed our professional and private life substantially in 2020 and it’s very likely this will continue in 2021.
Usually after the ASH meeting, conferences and appointments become less prevalent and we have more time to focus on our families, to prepare for the holidays and to review the events and the challenges of the outgoing year.
Today, the 8th of December, is also something like a “birthday" because some of you might remember that exactly 30 years ago on the 8th of December of 1990, the honorable Prof. Edward Donnall “Don” Thomas (1920-2012) received the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden for the development of bone marrow transplantation and gave a remarkable lecture, which clearly and impressively showed us how bone marrow transplant was born and how fast the field has developed after Professor Thomas’ achievement in the last 30 years.
Thus, I hope you can slow down in these days and find some time to listen to his instructive lecture: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1990/thomas/lecture/
and/or read his Nobel Lecture: https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2018/06/thomas-lecture.pdf
Furthermore, if you’d like to get more behind-the-scenes insights of the nomination and selection process of the Nobel Prize candidates, please listen to the interesting podcast from Nico Gagelmann, one of our EBMT Young Ambassador's from 2020, who talked to the former EBMT President and Honorary EBMT Member Prof. Gösta Gahrton, who was at this time an active member of the Nobel Prize Committee.