The 49th ASHI annual meeting was held in San Antonio, USA, from October 16 to 20. During this meeting, dr. Sebastiaan Heidt, leader of the Transplant Immunology Research Group in the LUMC Immunology Department, received the Bernard Amos Distinguished Scientist Award. This award was established in 2001 to honour a distinguished ASHI scientist, who like dr. Amos, has made significant contributions to the field of histocompatibility and immunogenetics. The research of dr. Heidt focuses on HLA sensitization in the context of solid organ transplantation, with the aim to increase the chance of receiving a transplant and to maximize graft and patient survival. The Distinguished Scientist Award was handed out 22 times to date and dr. Heidt is the 3rd European awardee.
During the same meeting, dr. Cynthia Kramer from the Transplant Immunology Research Group received the ASHI Scholar Award for her work on site-directed mutagenesis of HLA molecules for detailed analysis of the interaction between HLA-specific antibodies and target HLA molecules. This project is a collaboration with the research team of One Lambda Scientific.