Press Release 13 Dec 2017

Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
13 December 2017

Lebanon, New Hampshire - The Biomedical Excellence for Safer Transfusion (BEST) Collaborative has announced that Zbigniew M. Szczepiorkowski, MD, PhD, FCAP has been elected as its new Chair, effective October 2018.

Zbigniew (Ziggy) M. Szczepiorkowski, MD, PhD, FCAP, is currently an Associate Professor of Pathology and Medicine at Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth as well as Section Chief of Laboratory Medicine, Medical Director of the Transfusion Medicine Service, Medical Director of the Center for Transfusion Medicine Research, and Director of the Cellular Therapy Center at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, N.H, USA. Szczepiorkowski is Director of Fellowship Program in Transfusion Medicine at DHMC. He also is an investigator at Norris Cotton Cancer Center (NCI Comprehensive Cancer Center) and a consultant in Pathology Services at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston as well as a visiting professor in Institute of Hematology and Transfusion Medicine, Warsaw, Poland.

Dr. Szczepiorkowski, a native of Poland, received his medical degree in Warsaw, Poland. He arrived to the United States in 1992 where he completed residency and fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA.

Dr. Szczepiorkowski has served in many leadership capacities with organizations and professional societies. He is past-president of AABB, past-president of the American Society for Apheresis, a coleader of the Cellular Therapy Team of the Biomedical Excellence for Safer Transfusion Collaborative (BEST), a past treasurer of the World Apheresis Association, a past member of the board of directors of the National Marrow Donor Program (Be The Match) and Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplantation Research (CIBMTR). He has more than 100 peer-reviewed publications in the fields of laboratory medicine, cellular therapy, apheresis and transfusion medicine. He serves as section editor (Cellular Therapy and Reviews) Vox Sanguinis and associate editor of the Journal of Clinical Apheresis. His current research includes studies of adaptive immunotherapy in cancer, the clinical use of apheresis and cellular therapy products.

"I am delighted that Ziggy will be my successor as Chair of BEST, " said Dr. Mike Murphy, current Chair of the BEST Collaborative. "He has been co-leader of the BEST Cellular Therapy Team for some years, and has made major contributions to BEST. I wish him every success."

 “I am extremely humbled by my election as the next chair of the BEST Collaborative to follow Mike Murphy. The high quality of BEST Collaborative research is the true value proposition of our group. We need to continue studying critical questions using the highest quality methods and approaches as well as disseminate the knowledge we have all created,” stated Dr. Szczepiorkowski. “I very much look forward to learning from all BEST Members about areas and issues which we could make even better. I look forward to working with everyone and involve even greater number of junior faculty as we continue the BEST success story.”

Dr. Szczepiorkowski will serve a four-year term.

About the BEST Collaborative:

The Biomedical Excellence for Safer Transfusion (BEST) Collaborative is an international research organization whose objective is to improve the safety of transfusion and cell therapy and related services through standardization of analytic techniques, development of new procedures and execution of clinical trials in hemotherapy and cell therapy. More than 115 scientific publications have resulted from the Collaborative's work.

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CONTACTS:
Michael Murphy, MD; Chair of the BEST Collaborative, in Lebanon, NH: +44 1865 447902
OR
Eileen Selogie, MT(ASCP)SBB; Executive Director of the BEST Collaborative: +1 310 801 0914