Prof. Petr Sedlacek, MD, PhD
HSCT Programme Director, CIC 452
Department of Paediatric Haematology and Oncology
University Hospital Motol, Prague, Czech Republic
"I have been privileged to participate actively in many EBMT projects, and have been a member of the Board of the PDWP for about 15 years. My activities have given me the opportunity to work with excellent colleagues in an open and friendly atmosphere. Thousands of children and adolescents undergo HSCT, and I feel it is our duty to offer them the best treatment and optimal chance of cure. I am deeply convinced that the platform of the EBMT PDWP is one of the most important vehicles to achieve these challenging tasks, as long as we joined our efforts."
My Manifesto
I am standing for election to the position of Chairman of the Paediatric Disease Working Party.
I have been privileged to participate actively in many EBMT projects, and have now been a member of the Board of the Paediatric Working Party for about 15 years. As one of the candidates for the next chair of the Paediatric Working Party my main aims are:
- To engage and promote active co-operation with all EBMT working parties treating children and adolescents, particularly with the Inborn Errors WP, Aplastic Anaemia, Infectious Diseases, Late Effects, Haemoglobinopathies and Immunobiology, in an effort to meet the total needs of the full spectrum of paediatric HSCT patients.
- To promote prospective, collaborative studies for malignant paediatric diseases. This has become a time- and cost intensive task since the new EU-regulations and funding remains a difficult and controversial but critical issue.
- To develop further the close collaboration with experts from the Leukaemia research / Chemotherapy/Immunotherapy in order to define the optimal timing of HCT and incorporate transplant recommendations into the disease specific protocols.
- To implement the new regulations on paediatric medicines from the European Medicines Agency, aiming to ensure that drugs and immunotherapies used to treat children are properly tested and expand the availability of paediatric medicines.
- To offer physicians and nursing staff from small or new centres practical training and fellowships in experienced transplantation units through a European Collaborative Paediatric HSCT network.
- To further develop established paediatric standards within the Accreditation Process through JACIE to guarantee and maintain a high quality of patient care and experience.
My activities within the EBMT have given me the opportunity to work with excellent colleagues in an open and friendly atmosphere. As thousands of children and adolescents undergo HSCT, it is my fervent duty to offer them the best treatment which bestows the optimal chance of cure. I am deeply convinced that the platform of the EBMT PDWP is one of the most important vehicles to achieve these aims by task-oriented collaboration. All the above would be challenging tasks, which I’m positive we would be able to work on, as long as we joined our efforts.
I have graduated in 1988 at Charles University in Prague. I have been working in the field of paediatric haematology and later also transplantation since my training as a paediatrician, in University Hospital Motol in Prague. During my 6 months visiting fellowship at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle in 1996 I learned a lot about HCT from unrelated donors. After my return to Prague, I initiated unrelated HCT at our centre as a head of HCT unit. Our unit serves to children with whole spectrum of malignant and non-malignant disease. Transplant unit is fully Jacie accredited since August 2019.
I have underwent several trainings in outstanding transplant units abroad: Hadassah University Hospital in Jerusalem (1993); Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle (1996); Fulbright Foundation scholarship at Fairview Hospital at University of Minnesota, Minneapolis (1999); Charité in Berlin (1994) and Chicago (2002).
I am involved as a national coordinator and investigator in several institutional and international projects dealing with various topics related to hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, both in malignant and non-malignant diseases. I had been invited as a speaker to several national and international scientific paediatric conferences and meetings including Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Netherlands, Belarus, Russia, Italy, USA, Kazakhstan, Armenia. I am a member of Czech Society of Haematology and honorary member of Armenian Society of Hematology. I am a member of the Board of the Paediatric Disease Working Party and active member of Inborn Errors WP of the EBMT.
My EBMT activities:
Organiser of IEWP meeting in Prague
Organiser and local chair of Paediatric EBMT meeting in Prague
Member of LOC of EBMT meeting in Prague, 2005
Co-chair of EBMT meeting in Prague, 2022
EBMT abstract reviewer for PDWP, IEWP and IDWP
Clinical inspector of JACIE
Note: Voting for the EBMT Elections opens on 11 April. Principal Investigators (PI's) from active EBMT member centres will be able to cast their vote online for their preferred candidate within the open positions. The elections results will be announced live at the General Assembly Meeting on 25 April, during the 49th Annual Meeting of the EBMT. Instructions on how to vote will be sent out to PI's closer to the voting start date.