BSHT Aberdeen meeting report
BSHT 2022
Meeting report
The BSHT Meeting 2022 in Aberdeen was the first in-person meeting to take place in 2 years for the society. Everyone was really happy to be back together and be able to spend time reconnecting with colleagues under ‘near normal’ conference conditions.
On Wednesday evening there was an ECR event organised and hosted by Jo Mitchell and Claire Whyte called ‘Career chats on the couch’. This was a successful event with >35 participants. This sort of session is always greatly appreciated by the ECRs as it gives examples of different career paths and how best to prepare for, and make the most of, opportunities. It is always good to learn from the experiences of others.
On Thursday, the main meeting started with a pleanary lecture by Steve Watson (University of Birmingham), talking about ‘Novel ligands for platelet glycoprotein receptors’. This was followed by an excellent session from ECR speakers, focusing on the platelet receptors GPVI and CLEC-2. Eva Maria Soriano Jerez (University of Reading) started the session and was followed by a good showing from the University of Birmingham with Natalie Jooss, Joanne Clark, Zhaogong Zhi and Christopher Smith all presenting their work.
The second plenary talk was by Nikki Curry (Radcliffe Department of Medicine, University of Oxford), who gave a lovely talk on the ‘Pathophysiology of trauma induced coagulopathy’. The Scientist in Training session which followed was composed of 5 ECRs whose abstracts scored the most highly and we enjoyed talks from Ghadir Alkarithi (Leeds), Yu Shi (Leeds), Gemma Little (Reading), Rahim Kanji (National Heart and Lung Institute London) and Megan Simpson (Aberdeen).
The final session of the day started with a plenary talk by Beverly Hunt (Guy’s & St Thomas’s, London) who spoke on the highly topical and interesting area of ‘COVID-19 and clots: current uncertainty & controversy’. This was followed by the ‘Emerging Fellows’ session which showcased the amazing work being undertaken by new Fellows in our research field: Julie Rayes (University of Birmingham), Susan McNeill (University of Glasgow) Fraser Macrae (University of Leeds) and Evangelos Tzolos (University of Edinburgh). We look forward to seeing where these projects take them.
The evening started with drinks and the poster session, with the poster prizes being awarded to the winner, Louis de Bernard and runner up, Safa Gayes. We were then treated to some traditional bag pipes and an Address to the Haggis expertly performed by Henry Watson, before enjoying a Burns Night Supper.
On Friday, Catherine Bagot (Department of Haematology, Glasgow Royal Infirmary) had the honour of giving the early morning plenary ‘Vaccine-induced immune thrombocytopaenia and thrombosis: One year on, what have we learnt?’ which was a lovely presentation and highlighted the excellent contributions our colleagues made to this area. We then had a series of presentations selected from abstracts given by: Cédric Duval (University of Leeds), Rachel Stapley (University of Birmingham), Sarah Jones (Manchester Metropolitan), Ahmed Hjazi (Imperial College London), Gael B Morrow (University of Oxford), Alan J. Stewart (University of St Andrews), Joanne Mitchell (University of Birmingham) and Alex Bye (St George’s University). The next session was the 5 minute talks given by the summer students, Louis De Bernard (University of Oxford and University of Aberdeen), Amar Bhagania (University of Birmingham) and Eima Karim (Manchester Metropolitan) who all did a great job presenting their work at a national conference. The session was rounded off by a very entertaining plenary talk given by Matthew Harper (University of Cambridge) on ‘Thrombus on a chip – modelling the human vasculature’.
The final session of the meeting started with a plenary from Helen Philippou (University of Leeds) talking on ‘The contact pathway as a target for antithrombotic drugs’ which was followed by 5 talks selected from abstracts given by Claire Whyte (University of Aberdeen), Pratima Chowdary (Royal Free Hospital, London), Christina Crossette-Thambiah (Imperial College London), Aisling Rehill (Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland) and Samantha Montague (University of Birmingham).
A good time was had by all and we look forward to the next meeting. We appreciate the risk that the committee took in deciding to have an in-person event this year, it was definitely worth it!
Natalie Poulter
