ISEH 2025 Society Award Winners

 

On behalf of the Awards Committee, ISEH would like to congratulate the recipients of the 2025 ISEH Society Awards which will be presented at the ISEH 54th Annual Scientific Meeting.

Donald Metcalf Award Winner - Constanze Bonifer

The recipient of the 2025 Donald Metcalf Award is Dr. Constanze ‘Conny’ Bonifer, for her outstanding work in the fields of epigenetic and gene regulatory processes regulating blood cell development and differentiation, and how these processes go astray in the development of blood cancer. Dr. Bonifer has been a pioneer and world leader in these areas and a source of inspiration and guidance for many scientists working in experimental hematology. 

Dr. Bonifer started her scientific career in Germany where she completed her BSc in Cologne and her PhD in Heidelberg. After a postdoctoral fellowship at the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden and the National Institute of Medical Research, London, UK, Dr. Bonifer returned to Germany as an Assistant Professor at the University of Freiburg. She next relocated her group to the University of Leeds, UK, where she became the Head of Section of Experimental Haematology, and subsequently took up the Chair of Experimental Haematology at the Institute of Cancer and Genomic Sciences at the University of Birmingham, UK. Dr. Bonifer is currently Emeritus Professor of Experimental Haematology at the University of Birmingham and Principal Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne, Australia. In addition to her academic roles, she has given her time generously to the success of ISEH, serving on several committees, including the Board of Directors, and in encouraging and supporting ISEH junior investigators at our annual meetings.  

Dr. Bonifer has made many seminal contributions to our understanding of how epigenetic processes and transcription factors regulate blood cell development. Her early work on identifying individual gene contributions provided important insights into the molecular principles of enhancers in developmentally controlled gene regulation. She has been a pioneer in using molecular biology and genome wide ‘omics’ techniques combined with systems biology and mathematical modelling, to identify gene regulatory networks that establish and maintain blood cell fates. This work ultimately uncovered the mechanisms by which key transcription factors, like Runx1, play in these processes. In parallel, Dr. Bonifer applied her sophisticated insights and knowledge to make new inroads into our understanding of how deregulation of blood cell development contributes to leukemogenesis. Her early beliefs that transcriptional malfunction was at the heart of tumorigenesis, strongly shaped the cancer epigenetics field. Finally, her studies of the transcriptional regulation of blood cell development in mouse embryonic stem cells, provides essential clues about blood cell differentiation derived from human ES/iPSC cells. Dr. Bonifer has been an inspiring pioneer and innovator who has driven the field forward with her many seminal contributions, and continues to be a role model for the next generations of experimental hematologists.

 

McCulloch and Till Award Winner - Ulrich Steidl

Dr. Ulrich ‘Uli’ Steidl is the 2025 winner of the ISEH McCulloch and Till Award for his outstanding contributions to the field of experimental hematology, particularly his ground-breaking functional and mechanistic studies of HSCs, pre-cancerous stem cells and leukemia evolution. 

After completing his M.D./Ph.D. studies at the University of Heidelberg Medical School and German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Heidelberg, Germany, Dr. Steidl joined the group of Dr. Dan Tenen at Harvard Medical School as a Research Fellow and then as an Instructor in Medicine. He established his independent research group in  the Departments of Cell Biology and Medicine (Oncology) of Albert Einstein College of Medicine, NY, where he is currently Professor of Cell Biology and serves as the Scientific Director of the Division of Hemato-Oncology, Co-Director of the Einstein-Montefiore Blood Cancer Institute, Interim Director at the Ruth L. and David S. Gottesman Institute for Stem Cell Research and Regenerative Medicine, Deputy Director of the Montefiore Einstein Comprehensive Cancer Center, and Chair of the Department of Cell Biology. In addition to his many academic responsibilities, Dr. Steidl has actively contributed to ISEH through his service on various committees. In addition, he has served on the Board of Directors (2017-2024) and notably in 2023 served as ISEH President. He also is a generous mentor, actively engaged in helping junior faculty and trainees achieve their goals. 

Dr. Steidl has made several essential contributions to the field of experimental hematology. He was one of the pioneers to devise the concept of pre-cancerous stem cells (pre-CSCs) and uncovered the cellular and molecular regulatory mechanisms that underlie pre-CSCs in MDS, AML, and MPN. Early in his career, Dr. Steidl recognized the importance of obtaining a molecular understanding of HSCs, the ancestors to all circulating blood cells, if one is to understand and treat hematological diseases successfully. He published the first transcriptomic and epigenetic characterisations of human HSCs and HSPCs, respectively. These studies revealed an unexpected regulation of HSCs by neuromediators and significant epigenetic changes during HSC differentiation, which impacts patient outcomes. Application of single cell technologies to HSPC biology uncovered new cell surface molecules, and a novel mechanism of surface molecule transfer in stem cells that contribute to their functional heterogeneity. Dr. Steidl has also contributed to the transcriptional and epigenetic characterization of disease-driving stem cells in MDS, resulting in identification of stem cell-specific targets that have provided the basis for preclinical and clinical efforts to develop pre-LSC and LSC-directed therapies. 

Janet Rowley Award Winner - Adam Wilkinson

Dr. Adam Wilkinson is the recipient of the 2025 ISEH Janet Rowley Award for his outstanding contributions in the field of hematopoietic stem cell biology, in particular, his ground-breaking work on expanding HSCs ex vivo. 

Dr. Wilkinson completed a Master’s in Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry at the University of Oxford, UK, and his PhD in Haematology at the University of Cambridge, UK where he studied the transcriptional regulation of mammalian blood cell development in the group of Dr. Berthold Göttgens. He then joined the lab of Dr. Hiromitsu Nakauchi at the Institute of Medical Science University of Tokyo, Japan, and at the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at Stanford University, US. In 2021 he moved back to the University of Oxford to establish his independent group at the MRC Molecular Haematology Unit of the MRC Weatherall Institute of Medicine and was promoted to Associate Professor of Stem Cell Biology in 2022. Dr. Wilkinson is now in the process of returning to the University of Cambridge, funded by a Welcome Trust Career Development Award and the Krishnan-Ang Junior Group Leader Award in Haematology. Dr. Wilkinson has been a member of ISEH since 2013 and has contributed in many ways to the society, including as Chair of the New Investigator Committee, organising New Investigator sessions at the ISEH Annual Conference, webinars, Simply Blood posts, the ISEH Career Fair, and the ISEH Pre-Meeting Workshop for students and postdocs. In his own lab he is equally supportive of his students and postdocs, advising them on their research and career goals. 

Dr. Wilkinson’s contributions to the field of experimental hematology started during his Masters and PhD studies where he elucidated transcriptional networks that regulate developmental hematopoiesis and pediatric leukemia. Subsequently, he became interested in HSC cell renewal, and while in his postdoc embarked on his ground-breaking research--establishing a new, polymer-based, long-term culture method to stably expand HSCs ex vivo. The ability to expand HSCs ex vivo had remained a major and longstanding challenge and the novel culture methods developed by Dr. Wilkinson have been a game changer for the entire field. He has continued his studies on the mechanisms of HSC self-renewal and differentiation in his independent research group and has proven to be a generous collaborator, helping and advising others to implement the new culture method in their labs. As a result, the method has been widely accepted, greatly facilitating mechanistic studies and significantly advancing the field of HSC biology.

Outstanding Mentor Award Winner - Teresa Bowman

Dr. Teresa Bowman is based at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, where she is the Renee E. and Robert A. Belfer Chair in Developmental Biology and Chair of the Department of Developmental and Molecular Biology. She obtained her BSc from Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, and started her research career in the laboratory of Margaret Goodell at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, where she completed her PhD on the genetic complexity of HSC self-renewal and proliferation. Thereafter, she joined the Zon lab at Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA for her postdoctoral studies and in 2013 established her independent laboratory at Albert Einstein College. Her long-standing research interests include: mechanisms of HSC formation and regeneration, pre-mRNA splicing regulation of hematopoiesis, and the identification of novel therapeutics for myelodysplastic syndrome. Teresa has served on numerous ISEH committees and has chaired the New Investigators and Publications Committees. She also coordinated and co-directed the ISEH grant writing workshop in 2024. 

Mentorship has been Teresa’s passion since she was a PhD student. As a Principal Investigator she has mentored high school students, undergraduates, rotation students, Master and PhD students, medical students and clinical fellows, and postdoctoral fellows in her research group. Many of her trainees have continued in research and have secured individual fellowships and training awards. In addition to mentoring the trainees in her own group, Teresa has also served on numerous student advisory, qualifying exam, and thesis defense committees. At Einstein she leads a summer bootcamp for new PhD students to help them prepare for their PhD studies and is the inaugural first-year PhD student advisor. In this role she directs the course ‘Learning to be a Scientist’ and meets with individual students to help them select labs and coursework. To extend mentoring opportunities for students beyond their first year, she established the ‘Advisory Council of Elders’ (ACE) program across campus. In 2022, Teresa was awarded the LaDonne H. Schulman Award for Excellence in Teaching for her commitment to teaching and mentoring the next generation of researchers. 

Leadership in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Award Winner - Vanessa Scanlon

Dr. Vanessa Scanlon, the 2025 recipient of the ISEH Leader in DEI award, is an Assistant Professor at the Center for Regenerative Medicine and Skeletal Biology of the University of Connecticut Health (UCH), Farmington, CT. She received her BSc in Molecular Cell Biology and Diagnostic Genetic Sciences from the University of Connecticut. After her PhD in Biomedical Sciences at UCH, she trained as a postdoctoral fellow in the group of Dr. Diane Krause at Yale, where her interest in fate decisions of hematopoietic progenitor cells (HPCs) started. During her training, she was awarded a K01 Mentored Career Development Award to develop image data processing tools to explore the intrinsic and extrinsic factors that influence HPC fate. In Jan. 2022, she established her independent laboratory on benign hematology and bone marrow microenvironmental regulation of hematopoiesis. Vanessa is the Vice Chair of the ISEH Junior Faculty Committee, has organised ISEH webinars and served on the ISEH DEIA working group last year. 

Throughout her career, Vanessa has been passionate about inclusive and accessible research training and has mentored many students from backgrounds that are underrepresented in science. While at Yale, she initiated and led a program for local community college students to conduct a summer project in a research lab. She developed the research curriculum and a professional development series for the students providing them an opportunity to showcase their research at an end-of-summer symposium. After Vanessa returned to UCH to establish her lab, she continued to serve in an advisory role for the summer program at Yale. In addition, she has hosted summer research students from underrepresented backgrounds at UCH and served as a mentor in a summer research project programme at the University of York (UK). To widen her reach, she has over the past 4 years held virtual office hours twice a week for any high school, undergraduate, and graduate student anywhere in the world with an interest in biomedical research to obtain additional guidance for pursuing this career. This unique effort has resulted in a remote team that participates in bioimage analysis and learns about career paths and the preparation of CVs and personal statements.

Blog post contributed by members of the ISEH Awards Committee.

Please note that the statements made by Simply Blood authors are their own views and not necessarily the views of ISEH. ISEH disclaims any or all liability arising from any author's statements or materials.