New Leadership Elected to American Society of Hematology
The American Society of Hematology (ASH), the world’s largest professional society concerned with the causes and treatment of blood disorders, today announced the election of four new members to its Executive Committee for terms beginning after the 2016 ASH Annual Meeting December 3-6 in San Diego.
Roy L. Silverstein, MD, will serve a one-year term as vice president followed by successive terms as president-elect and president. Robert A. Brodsky, MD, will serve a four-year term as secretary, and John C. Byrd, MD, and Cynthia E. Dunbar, MD, will each serve four-year terms as councilors.
“Hematologists are at the forefront of cutting-edge advancements in science and patient care, and as the premier professional society for the field, ASH plays an important role in providing high-quality training, education, and research. All of these attributes require support and strong leadership to develop and grow,” said 2016 ASH President Charles S. Abrams, MD, of the University of Pennsylvania. “Drs. Silverstein, Brodsky, Byrd, and Dunbar have demonstrated impressive commitment to hematology and to the Society through their years of service as editors, program leaders, and mentors. These experiences, coupled with their breadth of knowledge in hematology, will shape the future of the field.”
Dr. Silverstein is chairman of the Department of Medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) in Milwaukee, where he also serves as the associate director for the MCW Cancer Center. Dr. Silverstein is also senior investigator for the Blood Research Institute at BloodCenter of Wisconsin. His research interests include clinical non-malignant hematology; translational research on the molecular, cellular, and genetic causes of thrombosis; angiogenesis; and atherosclerosis.
Dr. Silverstein has been an ASH member for more than 30 years, and during that time he has served in various leadership roles in virtually all aspects of the Society. Recently, he chaired the search committees for founding editor-in-chiefs of ASH Clinical Newsand the Society’s new journal, Blood Advances. He has served as the editor-in-chief of TheHematologist, chaired the Society’s Committee on Government Affairs, and co-chaired the 2012 ASH Annual Meeting Scientific Program. Dr. Silverstein is also a past member of the Society’s Committees on Educational Affairs and Training. As vice president of ASH, Dr. Silverstein will aim to engage the Society’s members to examine hematology training and develop innovative pathways for clinicians and researchers to successfully enter the field. He plans to lead ASH as a forceful advocate for continuing to invest in hematology research and in support of training and practice.
Dr. Brodsky is a professor of medicine and oncology and the director of the Division of Hematology at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, where he is also the director of the T32 Training Program in Hematology, director of the Physician-Scientist Pathway for the Osler Residency Program, and a member of the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center. Dr. Brodsky’s research interests include bone marrow failure states; bone marrow transplantation for non-malignant diseases; complement and complement-related disorders; paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria; atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome; and antiphospholipid antibody syndrome. Dr. Brodsky has chaired the ASH Scientific Committee on Bone Marrow Failure and has served the Program Committee since 2014, including co-chairing the 2016 Scientific Program. He is currently on the editorial board for ASH’s journal,Blood.
Dr. Byrd is a distinguished university professor of medicine, pharmaceutics, and veterinary bioscience; D. Warren Brown Chair of Leukemia Research, and the director of the Division of Hematology at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC - James) in Columbus, Ohio. He also serves as co-leader of the OSUCCC – James Leukemia Research Program and is principal investigator on multiple grants from the National Cancer Institute related to his work in leukemia. Dr. Byrd’s research interests include pre-clinical and clinical targeted therapy development in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), acute myeloid leukemia (AML), and molecular and immune pharmacology. Dr. Byrd is also a principal on the Leukemia Lymphoma Society’s AML umbrella study that has recently been initiated. Dr. Byrd has served as a reviewer and/or coordinator of ASH Annual Meeting abstracts for over a decade and has served as an ASH Clinical Research Training Institute faculty member from 2005 – 2012, serving as co-director from 2009 – 2011. He has also served as a contributing editor for The Hematologist,and he is currently an associate editor of Blood.He was also the 2015 recipient of the 2015 William Dameshek Prize for his contributions to the development of transformative treatments for CLL.
Dr. Dunbar is the section head and senior investigator for the Hematology Branch, Division of Intramural Research at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Dunbar’s research interests include laboratory research on hematopoiesis; pluripotent stem cell biology; hematopoietic stem cell gene therapy; congenital and acquired bone marrow failure syndromes; stem cell mobilization and engraftment; and stem cell transplantation. Dr. Dunbar served as a faculty member for the ASH-European Hematology Association Translational Research Training in Hematology Program from 2011 – 2016, serving as co-director in 2016. She has also served on the ASH Nominating Committee, the Program Committee, and has participated in several Society task forces and awards study sessions. She is also the former editor-in-chief of Blood.
The American Society of Hematology (ASH) (www.hematology.org) is the world’s largest professional society of hematologists dedicated to furthering the understanding, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disorders affecting the blood. For more than 50 years, the Society has led the development of hematology as a discipline by promoting research, patient care, education, training, and advocacy in hematology. The official journal of ASH is Blood (www.bloodjournal.org), the most cited peer-reviewed publication in the field, which is available weekly in print and online.
CONTACT:
Sara Khalaf, American Society of Hematology
[email protected]; 202-552-4925
