The EHA Jean Bernard Lifetime Achievement Award was handed to Dr Emili Montserrat and the EHA José Carreras Award to Dr Brunangelo Falini.

Emili Montserrat

Emili Montserrat was the third recipient of the Jean Bernard Lifetime Achievement Award, established to honour outstanding physicians and scientists for their lifetime contribution to the advancement of hematology.

Emili Montserrat is Professor of Medicine at the Institute of Hematology and Oncology, Hospital Clínic, University of Barcelona and Chairman of the European Research Initiative for CLL (ERIC). His main areas of interest are chronic lymphoproliferative disorders and lymphomas in which he and his group have made seminal contributions. Emili Montserrat is one of the founding members of the International Workshop on CLL (IWCLL) and the European Hematology Association (EHA). He is a member of the WHO Committee for Chronic Lymphoid Leukemias, co-chair of the WHO Clinical Advisory Committee for the Classification of Hematological Malignancies, Leukemia and Lymphoma Molecular Profiling Project (NCI) and International Oncogenome Consortium.

Dr Montserrat is on the board of many important journals in hematology and oncology and is a regularly invited key-speaker at the most important meetings in hemato-oncology. He has received many awards, including the Lilly Award in Biomedicine, ESMO life-time Achievement Award, National Award in Oncology (Fundación Echevarne, Spain), Rai-Binet (IWCLL) Medal, and Distinguished Senior Investigator of the University of Barcelona. He is an honorary member of many Universities and scientific organizations.

Brunangelo Falini

The EHA Board selected Brunangelo Falini for the José Carreras Lecture at the 15th Congress in Barcelona. Brunangelo Falini is Professor of Hematology at the University of Perugia in Italy. Brunangelo Falini's work on monoclonal antibodies has greatly advanced understanding of human lymphomas and led to his landmark discovery of NPM1 mutations in acute myeloid leukemia (AML).

Dr Falini's research has focused mainly on developing monoclonal antibody (mAb) technology to study hematological malignancies. In 2005 he discovered, aberrant nucleophosmin expression in the cytoplasm in about 30% of AML patients. He named this form of leukemia NPMc+ AML. Brunangelo Falini's work has had a profound impact on clinical practice.

Dr Falini received his full professorship in hematology at the University of Perugia in 2001 where he was head of the department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine since 2003 until 2006. He is the author of about 290 publications. Dr Falini's research activity was supported by the Italian Association for Cancer Research (AIRC).

Dr Falini is co-signer of the REAL classification and made important contributions to the development of WHO classifications of lympho-hemopoietic tumors. Because of his achievements in the field of hematological malignancies, he is a highly-cited author.