Lectures

Mortimer M. Bortin Lecture

The Mortimer M. Bortin Lecture commemorates the Founding Scientific Director of the International Bone Marrow Transplant Registry, now the CIBMTR. Dr. Bortin’s foresight and dedication were critical to the development of the CIBMTR as a global resource for HCT research.

2026 Lecturer: Stella Davies, MBBS, PhD, MRCP

About Dr. Stella Davies

Dr. Davies is a professor of pediatrics and the Director of the Bone Marrow Transplant Program at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, a 36-bed unit that performs 100-125 transplants annually. She received her PhD in molecular biology in 1989 and has run an NIH-funded translational studies laboratory for more than 25 years. Dr. Davies has chaired the CIBMTR Advisory committee (2008-2011) and chaired of the CIBMTR pediatric cancer committee. Dr. Davies is a past president of the American Society of Transplantation and Cellular Therapy (2021-2022). She has authored more than 500 peer-reviewed papers and currently has 4 NIH-funded grants.

2026 Lecture: Waiting Until Evening to See How Splendid the Day Has Been: Aging and Transplant at the Extremes of the Lifespan

Lecture Description: Outcomes of transplant are better in children than adults, largely due to reduced treatment-related mortality, so what if we could make an adult more like a child? Humans age biologically at different rates, and chronological age can be a poor indicator of health and resilience. Accelerated aging is the result of the accumulation of senescent cells, which produce pro-inflammatory proteins that cause chronic and progressive endothelial injury. Accumulation of senescent cells is a failure of immune surveillance, which starts at different ages and proceeds at different rates in different people. Understanding, and perhaps controlling senescence, might predict and prevent treatment-related mortality and perhaps make older adults more like a child again!

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E. Donnall Thomas Lecture

The E. Donnall Thomas Lecture recognizes an eminent physician or scientist, either a clinician or an investigator, who has contributed meritoriously to the advancement of knowledge in blood and marrow transplantation.

2026 Lecturer: James Ferrara, MD, DSc

About Dr. James Ferrara

Dr. Ferrara is the Ward-Coleman Professor of Cancer Medicine and director of the Center for Translational Research in Hematologic Malignancies at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. As a physician-scientist, his clinical and research career has focused on the immunology of allogeneic BMT and its major complication, graft-versus-host-disease (GVHD). He used innovative proteomic techniques to discover and validate serum biomarkers for acute GVHD and founded the Mount Sinai Acute GVHD International Consortium (MAGIC) to provide a multicenter database and biorepository that has identified and validated biomarkers capable of guiding GVHD therapy. Dr. Ferrara’s pioneering mechanistic studies have illuminated unexpected interactions between the innate and adaptive immune systems and have led to conceptual breakthroughs and the discovery of novel therapeutic targets in order to make BMT safer and more effective for all patients.

2025 Lecture: Immune Mediated Side Effects and Cancer Immune Escape After Immunotherapy

Lecture Description: Graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), is driven by inflammatory injury that damages the target organs of the gastrointestinal tract, skin and liver. Over the past decade, we have monitored thousands of patients in twenty-four HCT centers of the Mount Sinai Acute GVHD International Consortium (MAGIC) to understand the natural history of acute GVHD and develop new therapies. My laboratory discovered and validated serum biomarkers that predict long-term outcomes such as response to treatment and non-relapse mortality. In this lecture, I will review our validation of an improved grading system that integrates clinical severity and biomarkers to predict response to therapy and survival. I will also summarize advances in our biological understanding and how we can apply this information to patients with acute GVHD to improve their treatment.

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