Reviewer Recognition
Top Reviewers
Our reviewers are essential in supporting the publication process of Bone Marrow Transplantation. Their knowledge and critical evaluation is key and always appreciated.
To show our thanks, we present here the profiles of those awarded our 'top reviewer' accolade in recent years.
2023
Zachariah DeFilipp - USA
Dr. Zachariah DeFilipp is an attending physician in the Hematopoietic Cell Transplant and Cell Therapy Program at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center. He serves as the Director of BMT Clinical Research and is an Assistant Professor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School.
Dr. DeFilipp is actively involved in translational and clinical research initiatives to improve outcomes for patients undergoing allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation. His research has primarily focused on the development of approaches to the prevention and treatment of graft-versus-host disease. His other research efforts have explored improving transplant outcomes for high-risk leukemia through the incorporation of targeted agents in the pre- and post-transplant, as well as examining late effects following amongst long-term transplant survivors.
Robert Zeiser - Germany
Robert Zeiser is Full Professor of Medicine and Director of the Division of Stem Cell Transplantation and Tumor Immunology at the Department of Hematology, Oncology, and Stem-Cell Transplantation at the Medical Center-University of Freiburg in Freiburg, Germany. Professor Zeiser’s laboratory research is focused on graft-versus-host disease, tumor immune escape mechanisms, in vivo imaging, and oncogenic signaling. His group has made major contributions to the field of pre-clinical and clinical research, with publications in New England Journal of Medicine, Nature Medicine, Nature, Nature Immunology, Journal of Experimental Medicine, Blood, Science Translational Medicine, Nature Communications, and Journal of Clinical Investigation, and has received several awards in Germany, Europe, and the USA and research grants from multiple funding agencies. Professor Zeiser has authored or co-authored > 290 peer-reviewed publications and has served as a reviewer for Science, Nature Medicine, Nature Immunology, Nature Methods, Nature Reviews Immunology, Nature Reviews Cancer, New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet Haematology, Blood, BMT and other journals. Professor Zeiser is an expert reviewer for research funding bodies in Germany, France, Israel, China, the Netherlands, Austria, the UK, Poland, Belgium, and Switzerland, as well as the European Union. In 2023 Professor Zeiser received an ERC Advanced grant, the most prestigious and competitive funding scheme for researchers in Europe. He is the speaker of the Collaborative Research Center SFB 1479 at the University of Freiburg.
Arnon Nagler - Israel
Arnon Nagler, MD, MSc, is the president of the Sheba Hemato-Oncology Center and past director of both the Division of Hematology and the Bone Marrow Transplantation and Cord Blood Bank at the Chaim Sheba Medical Center, Tel-Hashomer, Israel and Professor of Medicine at The Tel Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel. Dr Nagler received his medical training at the Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School, Jerusalem, Israel, specializing in Internal Medicine and Haematology at the Rambam Medical Center, Haifa, and in Hematopoiesis (MSc) at TA University, Israel. He carried out a Postdoctoral research fellowship in hematology and bone marrow transplantation at "Stanford University Hospital" Palo Alto, CA, in the USA, from 1986 to 1990. Dr. Nagler has been working in the field of bone marrow transplantation for hematological malignancies, for the last 25 years. Dr. Nagler is one of the pioneers of nonmyeloablative and reduced intensity/toxicity allogeneic transplantations for both malignant and non-malignant disorders (Blood 1998). His main contributions and scientific interests are hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, hematological malignancies, cord blood biology and, transplantation, and adoptive cell-mediated immunotherapy including NK cell biology.
Dr Nagler established the first public cord blood bank in Israel and performed the first cord blood transplantations from related and unrelated donors in genetic and malignant hematological diseases in Israel. Dr Nagler has been an active member of the EBMT since 1993 and chaired the ALWP of the EBMT between 2014-2018 and currently Dr Nagler Co-Chair the Molecular Markers Subcommittee, the ALWP of the EBMT. Dr Nagler served on the Board of Directors of Netcord organization of cord blood banks and was the Treasurer from 2010-2013.
Dr Nagler is a member of multiple national and international societies and committees in the field. He serves on the Editorial Board of several journals and was the stem cell transplantation Section Editor for Leukemia and is currently an Associate Editor of BMT and served on Editorial Boards of numerous Journals in the field of stem cell transplantation and hematology.
Dr Nagler has written numerous original articles, reviews, and chapters for top rank peer-review journals including JCO, Blood, JEM, JI, EJI, Leukemia, and many others, and is the principal investigator for multiple clinical studies including first-to-human trials with novel molecules like Pidilizumab (McAb against PD-1) and BL8040 (novel CXCR4 antagonist). Dr Nagler is the inventor of multiple patents, including purging of BM with NK cells and inhibiting fibrosis by Halofuginon.
Dr. Nagler has received several awards including the best scientific abstract award of the ASBMT/CIBMR Tandem meeting (2004) and the best clinical abstract award of the NMDP Council Meeting (2004). In addition, Dr. Nagler is a popular speaker and has made numerous, invited, international presentations and many Oral presentations on an almost annual basis in all international transplantation and hematology meetings - ASH, ASBMT/CIBMTR, EBMT, EHA, Exp Hematology (including a presentation at the presidential symposium) and invited presentation at the Gordon conference (Boston USA).
2022
Zachariah DeFilipp - USADr. Zachariah DeFilipp is an attending physician in the Hematopoietic Cell Transplant and Cell Therapy Program at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center. He serves as the Director of BMT Clinical Research and is an Assistant Professor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School.
Dr. DeFilipp is actively involved in translational and clinical research initiatives to improve outcomes for patients undergoing allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation. His research has primarily focused on the development of approaches to the prevention and treatment of graft-versus-host disease. His other research efforts have explored improving transplant outcomes for high-risk leukemia through the incorporation of targeted agents in the pre- and post-transplant, as well as examining late effects following amongst long-term transplant survivors.
Christoph Schmid - Germany
Being educated at the medical schools of Würzburg, Salamanca, Basel and New York University, Dr. Schmid graduated from the Julius-Echter University Medical School in Würzburg (Germany) in 1996 and then received basic training in internal medicine at the Medizinische Poliklinik of the Ludwig-Maximilian-University in Munich. In 1998, he joined the group of Hans Kolb at the José Carreras Unit for hematopoietic stem cell transplantation in Munich. There, experimental and clinical studies on adoptive immunotherapy, as well as transplant strategies in high-risk leukemia were among his main areas of research. In 2004, he was certified as member of the European Association of Medical Oncology (ESMO) and received the German board certification in hematology and medical oncology. Besides being the responsible author of more than 30 original publications, he serves as reviewer for a variety of highly ranked journals in the fields of hematology and stem cell transplantation, and since 2005 as leader of the immunotherapy subcommittee of the EBMT Acute Leukemia Working Party. In 2005, he became head of the stem cell transplant unit at the university hospital of Augsburg, Germany. From 2014-2022, he was deputy director of the Augsburg university department of hematology and oncology, before he was appointed full professor for stem cell transplantation and cellular therapy research by the medical faculty at Augsburg University.
Jean El-Cheikh - Lebanon
Dr El-Cheikh received his MD from the University of Naples in Italy; followed by advanced training in Hematology with a special focus on Bone Marrow Transplantation (BMT) at the University of Bologna, Italy. He then moved to work as a faculty member (Praticien Hospitalier Specialist) at the Institute Paoli - Calmettes, Marseilles, France. In 2015 he moved to Lebanon and joined the NK Basile cancer center at the American University of Beirut Medical Center, (AUBMC). Currently, Dr El-Cheikh is an Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine and a BMT expert at AUBMC one of the leading institutions in the Eastern Mediterranean region and one of 2 centers that offer BMT in Lebanon.
In addition to his clinical work, Dr-El-Cheikh is also an academic and an active researcher. Having published 170 PubMed indexed articles, is considered an expert in malignant hematological diseases with particular interests in developing haploidentical transplant, the reduced-toxicity conditioning regimens, immunomodulation, and large experience in infectious diseases and supportive care in the context of intensive therapy for hematologic malignancies. He continues to add to the existing medical literature particularly working on studies targeting the Middle Eastern population.
Dr El-Cheikh is a member of many international scientific societies, such as the European Group of Blood and Marrow Transplantation (EBMT), the European Hematology Association (EHA), among others. He also serves as a peer reviewer in many major medical journals in his areas of expertise.
Alexandros Spyridonidis - Greece
Alexandros Spyridonidis was born in Greece and studied medicine in Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. He was trained as hematologist in the Dept. of Hematology, Oncology of the University of Freiburg, Germany where he completed his PhD thesis and awarded the Venia Legendi. He was appointed as Professor of Hematology in University of Patras, Greece where he established and is currently the Director of the Bone Marrow Transplantation Program (www.bmtpatra.gr), the first in Greece “Centre of Bone Marrow Donor Volunteers University of Patras (CBMDP)” (www.xarisezoi.gr), the “Institute of Cellular Therapy” (www.ictpatras.gr) and the international MSc Program “Cell and Gene Therapies: from Bench to Bedside and Good Manufacturing Practices“ (www.mastercgt.com). He has spent a research sabbatical leave at the National Institutes of Health, USA (Prof. J. Barrett’s Lab) working on the clinical establishment of cell therapies. He is/was Board Member of the Hellenic Society of Hematology (HSH), Founding and Board Member of the “Hellenic Society of Gene Therapy and Regenerative Medicine”, Advisory Board Member of the BMT Committee of the Hellenic National Transplant Organization, President of the BMT Scientific Group of the HSH, and Board Member of the Scientific Council of the Prefecture of Western Greece. Outside Greece, he is/was Hellenic Representative in European Union in “Tissues and Cells” Section, Co-leader of the RIC-Committee of Acute Leukemia Working Party (ALWP) of EBMT, Board Member of the “Centre of the Study of Haematological Malignancies” in Cyprous, Inspector of the JACIE/EBMT for Cell Therapies, and Mentor at the H-Net Masterclass of the European Haematology Association (EHA). He has multiple publications and has received numerous of national and international awards and research grants from multiple sources, mainly in the field of leukemia and cellular therapy.
Tapani Ruutu - Finland
Professor Tapani Ruutu is the former head of the department of haematology and director of haematopoietic stem cell transplantations for adults at the Helsinki University Hospital. He
was a long-time chairman of the early complications and regimen-related toxicities subcommittee of the EBMT Transplant Complications Working Party.
