The 2023 annual meeting of the British Society for Haemostasis and Thrombosis (BSHT) was held in Birmingham, United Kingdom. The theme of this year’s meeting was novel therapeutics and emerging technology.

You can read the post meeting report published in Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine

The British Heart Foundation has given substantial funds over the years to support research into thrombosis and haemostasis. This report summarises some of the achievements and highlights over more than 60 years of BHF funding in the area of research. Many more research projects have been funded that are not listed here, but it gives examples of some of the work supported. 

The BSHT are very grateful to the BHF for their continued efforts to support this important field.

You can read the report on the BHF website, including an overview of key discoveries in the field.

Dr Nikki Mutch, President of the BSHT and the BSHT committee were delighted to welcome back 110 attendees to their BSHT Annual Scientific meeting in person held at P&J Live in Aberdeen from 26-28 January 2022.

For the first time we organised an ECR event on the night preceding the conference.  We delivered an insight into various stages of the academic career path, including applying for postdoc and fellowship positions, applying for grants and forming collaborations.

The main conference included 6 plenary talks. Professor Steve Watson gave an excellent description of novel platelet GPVI ligands. Dr Nicola Curry, gave a fascinating insight into the dysregulation of the haemostatic system during trauma induced coagulopathy. Dr Catherine Bagot gave a timely overview into the development of COVID-19 vaccine-induced thrombocytopenia and thrombosis. Dr Matthew Harper enthusiastically described the development of a model of thrombus formation under flow, Professor Helen Philippou presented on novel inhibitors of the contact activation coagulation pathway and Professor Beverly Hunt gave an insightful update on coagulopathy in COVID-19. 

Highlights included an ‘emerging fellows’ talk by Dr Fraser Macrae on the formation and protective role of fibrin films on blood clots and a talk by Megan Simpson on the hypofibrinolytic state induced in COVID-19 patients which correlates with disease severity. This timely research won the Biochemical Society sponsored Scientist in training prize. An exciting theme throughout the conference were the topical presentations on COVID-19 and vaccine related thrombotic pathologies, their underlying mechanisms and treatment strategies being developed to tackle them. 

Overall, the BSHT 2022 delivered highly interesting, timely and impressive research from across the UK and provided ECRs from the society an excellent platform to present their research and develop their careers.

BSHT 2022 attendees

Awardees of the Scientist in Training Award: 

(photographed left to right)

HSP47 regulates collagen structure and synthesis by megakaryocytes  
Gemma Little (Reading)

Fibrin Film and its Interactions with Red Blood Cells and Platelets   
Ghadir Alkarithi (Leeds)

Neutrophils and NETs Produce Clots with Different Types of Fibrin Fibers 
Yu Shi  (Leeds)

Shear-induced platelet reactivity in native blood assessed at the point-of-care correlates with thrombin generation in patients with myocardial infarction 
Rahim Kanji (London)

Plasminogen Activator Inhibitor-1 and its cofactor vitronectin induce a hypofibrinolytic state in COVID-19 disease which correlates with disease severity 
Megan Simpson  (Aberdeen)

Winner of the poster prize

Tranexamic acid has a direct impact on the structure of the fibrin network
Louis de Bernard (Oxford)

Poster runner up prize

Using CRISPR/Cas9 to investigate the structure/function relationship of PLC𝜸2 in platelets
Safe Gayes (Reading)