International Scientific Advisory Committee (ISAC)
The International Scientific Advisory Committee (ISAC) meets once a year during a congress. The committee is chaired by the immediate Past President and includes all the chairpersons of the ISBT Working Parties together with the Secretary General and the Scientific Secretary.
Terms of Reference
Members of the International Scientific Advisory Committee
Michael Busch
Past President (2022-2024)
Michael Busch earned his MD and PhD degrees at the University of Southern California followed by residency training in Pathology, Laboratory Medicine and Transfusion Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He is currently Director of Vitalant Research Institute (VRI) and Senior Vice President for Research and Scientific Affairs at Vitalant, a national network of blood centers and donor testing laboratories. He is also a Professor of Laboratory Medicine at UCSF. Michael is one of the world’s leading transfusion medicine scientists, well-regarded for his ground-breaking work in such transfusion-transmitted diseases as HIV, HBV, HCV, HTLV and West Nile virus and protection of the nation’s blood supply from these and other emerging pathogens including ZIKV and SARS-CoV-2. He has published over 550 peer-reviewed scientific articles, editorials and book chapters. Michael is a member of the Transfusion Transmitted Diseases Committee of AABB, the Research and Development Advisory Committee of Canadian Blood Services and several World Health Organization panels.
Gwen Clarke
Secretary General (2018-2026)
ISBT Secretary General, Chair of the Vox SC; Clinical Professor, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
Gwen Clarke is a physician with training at the University of Alberta and at Emory University. She has clinical and research interests in perinatal immunohematology and experience as a hospital transfusion medicine physician and with the Canadian blood supplier. Her current role with Canadian Blood services includes medical leadership for perinatal and immunohematology reference laboratories, consultation in donor testing and for the Rare Blood Program. Gwen is a Clinical Professor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine at the University of Alberta. She is a former program director for residency training in Hematopathology and an examiner for the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. Gwen has recently completed a term as president of the Canadian Society for Transfusion Medicine.
Rada M. Grubovic Rastvorceva
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Rada Milos Grubovic Rastvorceva, MD MSci PhD is Consultant in Transfusion Medicine and Hematology, Scientific Program Manager at European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines and HealthCare (EDQM) at the Council of Europe, Strasbourg, France and Associate Professor at the Faculty of Medical Sciences at Goce Delcev University, Stip, N. Macedonia. Dr. Grubovic has been President of Macedonian Society for Transfusion Medicine and Chief Medical Officer of Institute for Transfusion Medicine of RNM in Skopje, N. Macedonia. Dr. Grubovic was awarded with Princes of Wales Memorial Award by the British Blood Transfusion Society, Fulbright Scholarship by the US Department of State, Award for Scientific Contribution in the Field of Medical Sciences and Certificate of Recognition for Scientific Productivity by the Faculty of Medical Sciences, University Goce Delcev, Stip, N. Macedonia, Certificate of Recognition from Macedonian Medical Association and many other domestic and international recognitions. She has more than 20 years working experience in the transfusion medicine field and extensive research experience in blood donation, apheresis, blood safety and supply, cellular therapy, transplantation medicine, clinical transfusion, quality management and etc. She gained additional research experience at University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), USA and King’s College Hospital, London, UK. She was National Project Manager of the EU IPA project “Strengthening of the Blood Safety System” 2013/14 and collaborator of European Blood Alliance (EBA) at EU projects SUPPORT-E and SUPPLY. Dr. Grubovic was a national representative in European Committee on Blood Transfusion at EDQM, Council of Europe and in European Commission on SoHO (bilateral screening chapter 28) and institutional representative and board member of EBA. She was advisor of Macedonian Minister of Health 2012-2015 and was a founder and Project Leader of National COVID-19 convalescent plasma program (PI – trial NCT04397523). She participated in numerous research projects and authored and coauthored more than 250 scientific publications. Dr. Grubovic is a member of ISBT, AABB, ISCT, MMA, MMC, MSTM and editorial board member and reviewer in more than 20 international medical journals.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/radicagrubovic/
email: [email protected]
Arwa Al Riyami
Senior Consultant Hematopathologist at Department of Hematology, Sultan Qaboos University Hospital.
- Email:
- [email protected]
Rachel Thorpe
Rachel Thorpe, PhD, is a sociologist and Senior Research Fellow at Australian Red Cross Lifeblood and Honorary Fellow in the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne. Rachel’s background is sociology of health. She uses social theories to investigate donation and donors within the context of their lives, social systems and changing technologies. A key focus of her current research is examining barriers and enablers to donation for older people, and donor perspectives on the use of genomic technologies in transfusion medicine.
https://www.lifeblood.com.au/our-research/program/meet-our-researchers/dr-rachel-thorpe
Denese Marks
Denese Marks earned her PhD at the University of Technology, Sydney, followed by post-doctoral fellowships at the University of Vienna, the University of Melbourne and the Institute of Child Health at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, as well as working in the biotechnology industry. Denese is the National Leader for Product Development at Australian Red Cross LifeBlood, where her research focuses on developing new blood products to meet patient needs, improving blood component processing and storage, platelet and red cell cryopreservation, pathogen inactivation and clinical trials of blood products. She is also an adjunct Associate Professor with the University of Sydney School of Medicine. Denese is a Section Editor for Vox Sanguinis, a scientific member of the Biomedical Excellence for Safer Transfusion (BEST) Collaborative and a member of the Executive Committee for the ISBT Cellular Therapies Working Party.Regional Director Western Pacific (2020-2024)
Christian Erikstrup
Regional Director Europe (2022-2026)
Christian Erikstrup is Chair Professor of Clinical Immunology at Aarhus University, Consultant and Head of Blood Production at the Department of Clinical Immunology, Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus Denmark.
Christian Erikstrup is a co-initiator of the The Danish Blood Donor Study - a nationwide open cohort study and biobank of blood donors. CE chairs the Danish Committee for Transfusion-Transmitted Infectious Diseases. CE is active in the SRAP subgroup of the TTID WP.
CE initiated his research career within HIV immunology with studies in Africa and Denmark and now focuses his research on susceptibility to infection and iron deficiency.
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