The third Oxford Centre for Haematology (OCH) Day, held at the MRC WIMM on 30th January, was a very successful afternoon.
Professor Irene Roberts gave an inspirational opening talk about her career as an academic clinician. Her engaging overview of three decades of peerless work really highlighted to those in the audience not only how many patients she has helped, but also how many scientists and clinicians she has influenced and encouraged to join the world of haematology.
Subsequent talks covered some of the breadth of haematology research that takes place in Oxford. There was a focus on translational haematology with talks on wide-ranging topics such as iron metabolism and its role in anaemia and its less familiar role in immunisation response; myeloproliferative disease; novel flow cytometry patient testing pathways; completed and future interventional clinical trials in intracranial haemorrhage; traumatic coagulopathy and finally gene therapy for haemophilia.
This year, the OCH Doug Higgs Poster Prize was won by Dr. Charlotte Brierley (pictured above) who presented her winning scientific abstract on Chromothripsis orchestrates leukemic transformation in blast phase MPN through targetable amplification of DYRK1A. Well done Dr. Brierley, and congratulations also to the runner-up, Georgeta Ciuban, who presented her clinical abstract on the results from the OxPLoreD study in CLL.
The next OCH Day will be held on 28th January 2025, at the MRC WIMM. We look forward to seeing you there.