EHA Congress 15th Anniversary - European Hematology Association

Inaugural Spring Course
of TRTH
Forty hematologists from both sides of the Atlantic called Villa Padierna in the South of Spain home for one
whole week during the exciting inaugural spring course of Translational Research Training in Hematology (TRTH).
In 2008 the European Hematology Association (EHA) and American Society of Hematology (ASH) started their
collaboration on this new program that was launched at the 14 th Congress of EHA in Berlin June 2009. From 44
applications received, 20 translational research projects were selected by the Study Section of the program,
composed of members from EHA and ASH.
> Twenty key note speaker hematologists
and researchers were willing
to share their precious experience with
the new generation researchers. In
small working groups and through didactic
sessions renowned hematologists
and scientists started training
and guiding the award winners to take
their research projects to a higher level.
Although this was the first time
the group met, faculty and trainees
easily bonded and interacted in an informal
manner.
This prestigious project has been made
possible by the generous support of
Wallace H. Coulter Foundation. Mara
Neal, Director Research Awards of the
Wallace H. Coulter Foundation elaborated
on the legacy of Wallace Coulter,
The new generation researchers in hematology
14 > EHA Newsletter May 2010
EHA Congress 15 th Anniversary
John Goldman
EHA President 1996 - 1998
who was not only an inventor and entrepreneur
but also a visionary and engineer.
This versatile talented man
“When the notion of a European Hematology Association was
first suggested in 1992, there were a lot of skeptics who doubted
the need and predicted it could not succeed. Fortunately
they turned out to be completely wrong. The steadily increasing
number of participants at each annual meeting and the
rapid development of basic and clinical aspects of hematology
now make me wonder how we could ever have managed without
it. The future of EHA for at least some decades is unquestionably
assured.”
founded the Coulter Corporation, a
global diagnostics company where he
invented and produced the Coulter
Counter, the first high-throughput,
standardized method to count and size
cells and particles as they flow through
an aperture. Mr. Coulter’s deepest passion
was to improve health care and
make these improvements available
and affordable to everyone. He dedicated
his wealth to continuing to improve
health care through medical research
and engineering. The Foundation that
started in December 1999 will continue
this legacy by funding translational research
in biomedical engineering such
as TRTH with the goal of accelerating
the introduction of new technologies
into patient care.
In the training not only hematological
issues were addressed, but also general
topics such as how to give a presentation,
ethical issues and how to
ask a research question. In three dinner
sessions the respective co-direc-