Dear EBMT friends and colleagues,
To be honest, who would have thought that this 46th Annual Meeting of the EBMT, which was the first completely virtual Annual Meeting in EBMT’s history would be such a success?
Within a relatively short time, the Local Organizing Committee together with the EBMT Congress organization and many helping hands succeeded to move within 5 months from an already planned on-site meeting in March, 2020 to a completely virtual event.
With more than 6,700 registered attendees from 89 countries around the world who listened mainly pre-recorded lectures and attended live Q&A sessions about the latest results in stem cell transplantation and cellular therapies which were presented by 235 excellent speakers in more than 95 sessions. The scientific quality of the 972 presented abstracts was very high with several practice changing studies presented in the Presidential Symposium.
Furthermore, the Patient, Family and Donor Day, The Cell Therapy Day, the Psychologist Day and Pharmacist Day, the Transplant Coordinator Day, as well as the new multi-stakeholder forum and the exciting Nurses Programme were all very well received. The different Joint Sessions with our sister societies reflects our intention to foster exchange in science and treatment in all health care professions worldwide in order to improve outcome for our patients in the of field of stem cell transplantation and cellular therapies.
My heartfelt thanks goes out to all who worked hard and contributed to the success of the meeting, especially the EBMT Congress Organization, the Local Organizing Committee under the leadership of Rafael Duarte and Anna Sureda, who created together with all EBMT Working Party Chairs, a compelling program and provided even in this virtual meeting a warm and friendly atmosphere. My thanks also extends to our sponsors for their continuous support in this difficult time and last but not least, to all the speakers and attendees of the meeting who made it such a major success.
Please take your time, and enjoy reading this Congress Bulletin, with the different reports and presentations to remember this first ever completely virtual 46th Annual Meeting 2020 and keep in mind that several recorded sessions can be seen again on-demand until the 1st of November 2020 in the meeting platform.
I hope to see you at one of our numerous forthcoming educational events, and at the very least in Madrid next year between March 14-17. 2021 for the 47th Annual EBMT Meeting.
Thank you for your trust in EBMT!
Nicolaus Kröger
EBMT President