Dear BSBMTCT member,

Unbelievably, we are now past the Summer equinox, but generally the weather has been nice and sunny and extending long into our evenings – always good for our physical and mental health to have some extra vitamin D and outdoor life after our long days inside our fluorescently-lit hospitals and other workplaces…

A major highlight this month has been the outstanding BSBMTCT Advanced Cellular Therapies scientific showcase and sub-committee (ACT-SC) meeting held yesterday at the Royal College of Physicians of London as a hybrid event on 29^th June. The meeting was hugely successful in laying down foundations for Advanced Cellular Therapies with many useful discussions for development and collaborative working in years to come. Very special thanks to Sara Ghorashian and Maeve O’Reilly, for their leadership of the event and the ACT-SC in its widely-greeted ascendency. The General Meeting of the ACT sub-committee meeting covered the main aspects of ‘business’ and ‘operations’ of the ACT-SC. This was followed by an exciting programme of speakers in memory and celebration of the life of Prof. Amit Patel. Notably, BSBMTCT now has significant linkage with the solid tumour community, led by Andrew Furness and Fiona Thistlethwaite. Also non-malignant developments were highlighted by Eduardo Olavarria and Rob Wynn, with other talks reflecting on the supportive care aspects of cellular therapies, Including treatment of infections, inflammation and other complications. Plans include BSBMTCT guidelines which will be coordinated by Andrew Clark, as lead of the Guidelines Sub-committee and further development of the BSBMTCT registry and EBMT interactions led by the Julia Lee and team, which will be invaluable in coming years as more patients are treated with CART and other ATMP and registered across our centres. Many thanks to the ACT-SC sub-group chairs and superb international panel of speakers, and also to Collaborative Conferences for organising this successful hybrid event. Many who attended the meeting left with a complete sense of awe and inspiration. There were calls to repeat it in coming years as a mid-summer event – let’s see!

The next major meeting for your diaries will be our upcoming BSBMTCT events will be the BSBMTCT Education Day – Tuesday 1st November 2022, which will also be a Hybrid Event at Cavendish Conference Centre, 22 Duchess Mews, London W1G 9DT – The meeting website is now live and registrations are now open – https://collaborativeconferences.co.uk/bsbb-home/

Other good news…a very special mention for our good friend Professor Alejandro Madrigal for the award of OBE in the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Honours – richly deserved for his major contributions to the clinical and scientific practice of BMT and global medicine throughout his long career, which still continues beyond his glittering work at Anthony Nolan as Scientific Director for many years. Needless to say, part of this is that he is actively involved with BSBMTCT and leads the R&D Subgroup of the ACT-SC. Please see https://www.anthonynolan.org/blog/2022/06/01/platinum-jubilee-honours-professor-alejandro-madrigal-anthony-nolans-former . Felicitaciones, Alejandro!!!

National Clinical Impact Awards 2022 round closed at 5pm on Wednesday 22^nd June 2022. BSBMTCT was able to support 5 new awards across the 3 levels. Good luck to all that applied for an award. Many thanks to Gordon Cook and the rest of the sub-committee for all their hard work.

Commissioners’ report 2022

The 13^th Commissioners report preparation is now underway, to be made available in late summer to members that have paid their annual subscription. Thank you to all members that have paid.

Germline testing We have a focussed on-line meeting in the afternoon of 15 July in collaboration with colleagues in diagnostic haemato-oncology and clinical genetics with a view to a combined position statement relating to the impact of germline mutation testing on our transplant and donor practice. Many with a key interest in this specialised area are already involved, but others with a special interest can contact Andrew Clark for details.

Covid-19 Unfortunately, Covid-19 is certainly still with us and on the rise. BSBMTCT guidelines continue to provide a reference point https://bsbmtct.org/bsbmtct-and-covid/ which are linked to NICE NG164 Guidelines in the process of being updated.

Our warmest wishes until the next time,  John Snowden, Kim Orchard, Fiona Dignan, Deborah Richardson, Eduardo Olavarria, & Julia Lee