ISTH 2025 Congress Chronicle: October

ISTH Congress Chronicle: Congress countdown and program updates

April 2025

By: Guy Young, M.D.

ISTH 2025 Congress Chair

Spring has arrived in the Northern Hemisphere while autumn has begun in the Southern Hemisphere. While in January I had mentioned the terrible wildfires that hit Los Angeles, I would also like to acknowledge the devastating flooding and wind damage that occurred in and around Brisbane, Australia, in March. I hope all my friends and colleagues there have or are recovering.

I spent a wonderful week in Brisbane this past October at the Blood 2024 meeting (a fantastic meeting, by the way), including some great sightseeing in that beautiful city. It was shocking to see pictures of the damage from the tropical cyclone, particularly the flooding along the banks of the Brisbane River where I had walked back and forth multiple times. Thanks to all who hosted me and showed me around Brisbane—you know who you are!

The ISTH 2025 Annual Congress Planning Committee (ACPC) met in late February in Amsterdam to finalize various aspects of the program, including placement of the abstracts into oral and poster sessions. Additionally, as a new feature for the 2025 Congress, selected posters will be presented (in addition to the poster presentation) in the Exhibit Hall using the Product Theater space as Moderated Posters. We also finalized the Plenary Lectures. You can see the details of the program here.

Speaking of the Plenary Lectures, in conjunction with the ISTH Lectures and Awards Committee, we are honoring four distinguished deceased individuals by attaching their name to those lectures. The recommendations came from various ISTH members, and coincidentally, I personally knew three of them.

I would like to take this opportunity to share more about each lecture honoree whom we remember. For more information, make sure to review the ISTH Congress program and you will also hear more about them at the Plenary Lectures. Thank you to Riitta Lassila for her contribution below regarding Margareta Blombäck.

Claire McLintock: The opening Plenary will be the Claire McLintock Memorial Lecture. I served on a couple of ISTH Committees with Claire, particularly as her Vice Chair for the Live Courses Subcommittee (part of the Education Committee) for two years. Aside from her obvious and many contributions to the ISTH and to women’s health in hemostasis and thrombosis, what struck me was her amazing leadership skills and her infectious enthusiasm. While Claire had plenty of ideas of her own regarding live courses that the ISTH should consider, she always let others on the committee contribute their ideas and thoughts first. Serving as her Vice Chair and then following her as the Chair of that committee was a truly important experience for me. It was humbling as well, as I was very well aware of the big shoes I had to fill when she rotated off the committee.

Janna Journeycake: For the first time in years, there will be a pediatric Plenary lecture focused on venous thromboembolism in children. Janna, who was an early pioneer in this field, and I worked together on grants, papers and committees. She was extremely passionate about patient care and innovative with her clinical research. She published a paper on thrombosis in hemophilia patients in 2001, which made us all rethink the perceived benevolence of central venous catheters in a patient population whom we did not really think thrombosis was possible, let alone common.

Victor Blanchette: We are also honoring another pediatric hematologist who was a true legend in Victor Blanchette. I knew Victor for more than 20 years in a variety of capacities. The Plenary he is being honored for is about idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, a disease he spent considerable time studying and lecturing about, but in addition, he was also a prolific clinician and academician in hemophilia. Among his legacies and one that will endure is his founding of the International Prophylaxis Study Group (IPSG), which has contributed much to the field of hemophilia, perhaps most famously the ubiquitously used Hemophilia Joint Health Score (HJHS).

Margareta Blombäck: She was a Swedish scientist who, during her long career, searched for answers to the fundamental questions related to highly clinically relevant challenges, especially in the field of severe bleeding disorders. Together with her former husband, Birger, she isolated fibrinogen, VWF and FVIII, and provided the crude concentrates to stop bleeding in people with severe coagulation factor deficiencies. She was the head of the coagulation laboratory at the Karolinska Institute and is missed by her numerous national and international students and colleagues who she always treated warmly.

Closing remarks

Finally, a lot has already been said and written regarding the geopolitical situation and the 2025 Congress location (read this), so I will not perseverate on it other than to say we really do have a fantastic meeting planned in a wonderful city. We do all hope you plan to come – it is going to be a wonderful event. Early registration closes on April 22, so make sure to register as soon as possible.

The next Congress Chronicle will be my last and will come out in early June. Stay tuned as I will provide as many suggestions and tips for enjoying Washington, D.C. as I can fit in.

ISTH pop quiz:

1. Cities around the world are augmenting their tourist attractions. All of the cities below except for one feature a Bridge Climb. Which city needs to get its act together regarding this and offer a Bridge Climb?

a. Kobe, Japan

b. Brisbane, Australia

c. Auckland, New Zealand

d. New York, U.S.

2. This one is for ISTH veterans or those willing to go online and do a bit of ISTH history homework. Can you name all the ISTH Congresses (not SSC meetings) that were NOT held in a country’s capital city since the Boston meeting in 2009 (the last one in the U.S.). No multiple choice on this one or it would be too easy. Write on a piece of paper and see how many you get.

3. You all know that I love my music and thought I would honor two of our Plenary honorees with questions about music. Margareta Blombäck is from Sweden and Claire McLintock was born in Scotland but spent most of her career in New Zealand. So, here goes…Which of the following musicians/bands are NOT from Sweden?

a. A-ha

b. Abba

c. Ace of Base

d. Roxette

4. Which of the following musicians/bands are NOT from New Zealand?

a. Split Enz

b. Balu Brigada

c. INXS

d. Lorde

Answer key:

1. D: New York. To my fellow New Yorkers who may think I am wrong, you can “walk” the Brooklyn Bridge from Brooklyn to Manhattan or the other way around, but you don’t “climb” it. If you try to climb it, you’ll end up either in a hospital or in jail. The other three cities boast climbable (with a guide) bridges. I did the Story Bridge Climb in Brisbane but have not done the other two. Other famous bridge climbs include what I believe was the first one, the Sydney Harbor Bridge which incidentally I climbed in 2005 when ISTH was in Sydney. After some research I found that you can also climb bridges in Perth, Australia and Porto, Portugal.

2. The ISTH Congresses since 2009 that were not held in a country’s capital city are as follows: Montreal, Canada, in 2023; Melbourne, Australia, in 2019; Toronto, Canada, in 2015; and Kyoto, Japan, in 2011. The meetings in 2024 (Bangkok), 2022 (London), 2017 (Berlin), and 2013 (Amsterdam) were all in the country’s capital city.

3. A: A-ha. Sweden definitely punched above its weight when it comes to 70s/80s/90s pop-rock. Abba, Ace of Base and Roxette all scored major international hits in those decades and as they all sung in English, it could be forgotten that they are all Swedish. A-ha had a brief but memorable career with a great video for the song “Take on Me,” but they are Norwegian and not Swedish. This list doesn’t include the Swedish rock band Europe who also had a brief period of popularity with the song “The Final Countdown.”

4. C: INXS. Lorde and Split Enz are the most famous exports from New Zealand when it comes to pop/rock music I could think of. Some of you might be wondering about Crowded House but they are a New Zealand/Australia mix so not entirely Kiwis. Balu Brigada are a newer band but if you like catchy alternative rock, give them a listen. INXS are amazing but they are Australian.