Dana Devine, PhD elected President, effective Sept 2022
Press Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
02 June 2022
Lebanon, NH -The Biomedical Excellence for Safer Transfusion (BEST) Collaborative has announced that Dana Devine, PhD has been elected as its new President, effective September 29, 2022.
Dana is currently the director of the UBC Centre for Blood Research and the Chief Scientist at Canadian Blood Services. She was formerly the vice-president medical and scientific for Canadian Blood Services; a position that she held for 11 years. Before that she was the Director of the Canadian Blood Services Centre for Innovation. Dana is currently the president of the US-based Association for the Advancement of Blood and Biotherapies (formerly AABB). She chairs the medical advisory committee for the American Red Cross (the largest US blood operator). Dana also chairs the medical advisory board for the transfusion product company, Macopharma which is based in Lille, France, and sits on the board of directors of STRM.Bio, a Boston-based gene therapy start-up company. She is a member of the research advisory boards of the Australian Red Cross Lifeblood, Vitalant (a US-based blood operator), and the Bloodworks Northwest (formerly known as the Puget Sound Blood Centre).
Dana completed her PhD at Duke University under the direction of Dr. Wendell F. Rosse. She also holds an MSc in marine biology from the Boston University Marine Program located in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
"I am delighted that Dana will be my successor as President of BEST, " said Dr. Ziggy Szczepiorkowski, current President of the BEST Collaborative. "She has been a co-leader of the BEST Conventional Components and former co-leader of Donor Studies Teams for a number of years. She has made major contributions to BEST and the transfusion medicine field at large. I am certain that she would bring BEST Collaborative to new levels of performance."
“I too am delighted to offer my congratulations to Dana on her election to be the next President of BEST," said Dr. Mike Murphy, BEST Treasurer, and Immediate Past President. "Ziggy has led BEST wonderfully through the challenging period of the COVID pandemic, and I have complete confidence in Dana’s ability to succeed Ziggy and to provide excellent leadership for BEST for the next 4 years.”
“I am very honoured to lead the BEST Collaborative. I attended my first BEST meeting in 2002. I subsequently joined the Conventional Components team under the leadership of Dr. Sherrill Slichter and Nancy Heddle. I became team co-lead with Dr. Pieter van der Meer, and continue in this role today “ stated Dr. Devine. “Having spent a number of years on the BEST executive, I have seen the organization ‘in action’. We continue to prosper as a research collaborative, publishing excellent quality papers in good journals. We have returned to face-to-face meetings; albeit with virtual supplementation for those who choose not to travel. This has permitted us to see friends and discuss projects. Several major issues are facing our community. One of these is the loss of DEHP from our blood storage containers and the need for every blood operator to basically revalidate everything that they make. BEST has an important role here in my opinion.”
Dr. Devine 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 154 scientific publications have resulted from the Collaborative's work.
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CONTACTS:
Ziggy Szczepiorkowski, MD, PhD; Chair of the BEST Collaborative, in Lebanon, NH: +1 603 650 7171
Michael Murphy, MD, FRCP, FRCPath, FFPath; Treasurer 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