By Bart Scott, MD

2008-12-06

Today’s Education Program session on Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation will focus on late critical problems. Dr. André Ticchelli will present pulmonary, cardiovascular, and renal late effects of stem cell transplantation. Dr. Stephanie Lee will present the diagnosis and management of chronic graft-versus-host disease (GVHD). Dr. Navneet Majhail will discuss relapse and secondary malignancies following hematopoietic cell transplantation. The focus on late critical problems is an under-appreciated area in stem cell transplantation. This education session should be useful for a broad audience as many hematopoietic cell transplant patients are under the care of non-transplant physicians when these late clinical problems occur. This session will take place at 7:30 a.m. and again at 2:00 p.m. in Room 2001-2003-2005 – West.

In addition to the education session, a scientific committee session will cover a systems approach to hematopoietic cell transplantation. At this session, Dr. Todd Golub, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, will discuss genomics and systems biology. He will discuss how gene expression profiling can be useful in hematopoietic cell transplantation. Dr. Susan Kaech, of Yale University School of Medicine, will present CD8 T-cell differentiation and memory T-cell development. The signals and genetic pathways that lead to T-cell differentiation will be discussed. Dr. Claude Perreault, of the Institute for Research in Immunology and Cancer in Montreal, Canada, will discuss donor T-cell expression and GVHD. It may be possible to use gene expression profiling on the donor T cells to potentially select donors who confer a lower risk of GVHD. All of these presentations offer new and exciting approaches for advancing the field of hematopoietic cell transplantation. This session takes place today at 2:00 p.m. and again tomorrow at 9:30 a.m. (Room 3002-3004-3006 – West).

Dr. Scott indicated no relevant conflicts of interest.

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