ORGANIZATION 12TH TERM (2021－2023)

Dear Colleagues,

Welcome to the International Society for Apheresis. I am honored being nominated the president of ISFA for the current 12^th term. We all look back to challenging months embossed by the COVID-19 pandemic and a wide variety of unexpected developments with regard to social and economic aspects worldwide. Apheresis techniques have been applied in a high number of COVID-19 cases and clinical trials are still under way. We recall the first fully virtual conferences of ISFA with the European Group of ISFA March 17-20, 2021 and an exciting joined day of ISFA and ASFA during the virtual ASFA conference May 4-6^th, 2021. Both events were highly stimulating for ourselves and more than 500 physicians and apheresis specialists joined these ISFA activities.

However, the time has come to look forward to future ISFA activities and to take advantage from recent developments of virtual conferencing. This might offer a unique chance to strengthen the worldwide apheresis community. The joined conference of ISFA and E-ISFA in 2023 will hopefully highlight future shared activities. 

In recent years, the field of therapeutic apheresis and its associated specialties has been broadening, mainly due to the discovery of new disease mechanisms, but also due to newly developed techniques. ISFA aims to integrate specialists from all medical fields and all professions to provide the central worldwide link in the field of therapeutic apheresis. Therefore, ISFA in turn strongly benefits from it’s members activities and active participation. I would therefore like to ask you to request the official support and partnership of ISFA for meetings in your country or region. ISFA is willing to support you as efficient as possible.

Yours sincerely,

Bernd Hohenstein

Prof. Dr. med. Bernd Hohenstein, MD

President of ISFA

President

Bernd Hohenstein (Germany)

President-elect

Ken Yamaji (Japan)

Immediate Past-President

Andre Kaplan (USA)

Congress President

(14th Europe)

Bernd Hohenstein (Germany)

Vice President

Bruce Sachais (USA)

Lionel Rostaing (France)

Mariko Harada-Shiba (Japan)

Secretary Treasurer

Yoshihiro Endo (Japan)

Editor-in Chief

Tadao Akizawa (Japan)

Regional Officers

America

Paul Malchesky, Patrick Moriarty, Antonio Torloni

Europe

Wladimir Szpirt, Volker Witt , Wolfgang Ramlow

Pan-Pacific

Hidenori Matsuo, Kou-Juei Lin