Dr. Mahmoud Aljurf is Professor of Medicine at Alfaisal University and the Director of Adult Stem Cell Transplant Program at King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Center in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He received his M.D. degree in 1985. He completed residency training in Internal Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and combined Hematology and Oncology Fellowships at Stanford University Medical Center. He also received Masters in Public Health (MPH) form Johns Hopkins University and FRCPath from UK. Dr. Aljurf is American Board Certified in Internal Medicine, Medical Oncology, Hematology, Medical Management and Quality Assurance. Dr. Aljurf has published over 150 scientific papers and several book chapters. He is the Scientific Director of the Eastern Mediterranean Blood and Marrow Transplantation Group (EMBMT), also the Editor in Chief for the journal Hematology/Oncology and Stem Cell Therapy. He was a recipient of the American College of Physician (ACP) Mastership Award for the year 2012. The King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Center in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia has one of the world’s largest units for treatment and transplantation of bone marrow failure patients. Eliane Gluckman graduated from the medical school university in Paris. She specialized in clinical and research hematology. She was head of the Hematology Department and Bone Marrow Transplant unit in the Hospital Saint Louis, Paris from 1976 to 2005. She is a founding member and past president of EBMT. Currently, she is Professor Emeritus of the university Paris-Diderot, President of Eurocord, of the European School of Hematology, and past president of the World Marrow Association and Member of the Board of the World Blood and Marrow Transplantation Association and of Netcord. She has received many prizes and honours in France and abroad. She has published more than 800 peer reviewed articles in international journals. Her main research interests are: Allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation in children and adults, bone marrow transplants in children with inherited disorders including Fanconi anemia and sickle cell anemia. She was the first to perform cord blood transplantation in 1988. This first success led to the development of worldwide cord blood banks and helped to save the life of many patients who could not receive a transplant because of the lack of a donor. More recently she led the International observatory on sickle cell disease Monacord located at the Centre Scientifique de Monaco. The objective of the group is to develop and coordinate actions for establishing diagnosis, treatment tools and promote education for sickle cell disease all over the world including developing countries. Carlo Dufour graduated from the medical school university in Genova. He specialized in pediatrics and afterwards in clinical and research hematology. He attended the Department of Hematology of the Hammersmith Hospital, London, UK, (nowadays part of the Imperial College Heatltcare NHS) where he achieved the MsC degree in Haematology by the Royal Postgraduate Medical School, University of London. Within the G.Gaslini Children’s Hospital, Genova, Italy, the largest, multi specialist pediatric hospital of the country, he chairs the Hematology Unit where have seat the national Registry of Neutropenia, the national Registry of Alps and related disorders and the national Data Base of Fanconi Anemia. He founded the Marrow Failure Syndromes Study Group within the Italian Pediatric Hemato- Oncology Association. He is author or co-author of about 150 international publications and of various hematology textbook chapters. He acts as reviewer for top ranking international journals including New Englanf Journal of Medicine, Journal of Clinical Oncology, Clinical Immunology and Blood. He serves as expert evaluator for different institutions including the French Registry for Rare Diseases, the Fanconi Anemia Research Fund INC (US), the Leukemia and Lymphoma Research Foundation (UK), the American Society of Hematology Education Program. He is currently the chairman of the Working Party of the Severe Aplastic Anemia (WPSAA) and a Board member of the European Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation (EBMT). He also serves as the chairman of the Scientific Working Group on Granulocyte and Monocyte Disorders of the European Hematology Association (EHA). He was recently part of the commission for the attribution of professorship position in molecular medicine by the University of London. In 2015 he received by the Fanconi Anemia Research Fund. INC the discovery award for participating to the identification of gene FANCT.
