“Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean.” — Ryunosuke Satoro

Cross-disciplinary collaboration was a highlight of the recent Australia and New Zealand Transplant & Cellular Therapies (ANZTCT) inaugural Scientific Meeting in Manly. What an amazing few days it was!

Part of the charter of the ANZTCT is to create an inclusive, collaborative approach to supporting bone marrow and cell transplant patients by bringing together researchers, nurses, haematologists, data managers and analysts, dieticians, exercise physiologists, as well as patients from across Australia and New Zealand.

They achieved this and more with their first scientific meeting, with every presentation of high caliber. There were:

• Debates on whether CAR-T cell therapy is the way of the future and BMT is a thing of the past,
• Panel discussions from experts across the country and overseas around the future of BMT,
• Invaluable networking and sharing of ideas – the room was buzzing with some colleagues meeting face to face for the first time,
• Discussions and questions around the role of the ANZTCT Registry and the importance of capturing accurate data on transplant patient outcomes,
• Numerous abstracts and presentations on people’s research into transplant,
• Presentations on survivorship from dedicated nurses and allied health professionals, chaired by our own Christopher Murray, talking about how to live and manage symptoms post transplant, and perhaps the most moving of all:
• A presentation came from Josh and his Mum Hazel talking about what it is really like to receive a diagnosis, get through treatment, and maintain positivity and hope through it all in order to get to the other side

Scholarships Announced:

We also had the pleasure of announcing three Arrow scholarship recipients, Leah Peters, Sanjana Rangi, and Sarah Tan, and hearing them present on their research ideas including research on transplants for First Nation people, children and those with AML.

It was our great pleasure to partner with ANZTCT to deliver their first ever Annual Scientific Meeting and with it being such a success, we look forward to the next one!