Board members
ISBT Executive Committee
Lin Fung
ISBT President (2026-2028)
Lin Fung is the Professor in Medical Laboratory Science at the University of the Sunshine Coast. She has worked in tertiary hospital pathology laboratories, led research teams at the Australian Blood Service and University of Queensland, and was the Chair of the ISBT Granulocyte Immunobiology Working Party. She serves on two hospital blood management committees and has an active interest in translational transfusion research. This led her to set up the OptiBlood research team, which runs studies directed at optimising the patient’s blood and use of blood products. Lin enjoys public speaking, facilitating collaborations, mentoring young scientists and is an advocate for evidence based transfusion practice.
Christian Erikstrup
ISBT President-Elect
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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Cynthia So-Osman
Cynthia So-Osman finalized her specialism in Internal Medicine, with a subspecialty training in Haematology (2000) and in Transfusion Medicine (2002). She obtained a Master of Science (MSc) degree in Clinical Epidemiology (2008) and obtained her PhD with a thesis titled: “Patient Blood Management in Elective Orthopaedic Surgery” in 2012. Since 2002 she is a Clinical Consultant in Transfusion Medicine at Sanquin Blood Bank at the Dept. of Transfusion Medicine, NL, and she actively participates in Patient Blood Management and COVID-19 related studies. As a Haematology Consultant, she works at Erasmus University Hospital, Rotterdam, NL. She is the past chair of the ISBT Clinical Transfusion Working Party, she is a member of the International Collaborative on Transfusion Medicine Guidelines (ICTMG) and a member of the BEST Collaborative.ISBT Vice President (2024-2028)
Jill Storry
Secretary General (2022-2026)
Jill Storry is an adjunct Professor at the Division of Haematology & Transfusion Medicine, Department of Laboratory Medicine, Lund University (LU), Sweden, and also responsible for the Immunohematology laboratories within the Department of Clinical Immunology and Transfusion Medicine, Laboratory Medicine, Lund. She trained as Medical Laboratory Technologist in Bristol, England and has worked for the American Red Cross National Immunohematology Reference Laboratory and the New York Blood Center Immunohematology Reference Laboratory before moving to Sweden to pursue her post-doctoral career. Primary areas of interest are the study of human blood group systems, both from a clinical perspective in the provision of providing blood to alloimmunised patients and from the perspective of human polymorphism, and its role in health and disease. She is currently the Immunohematology Section Editor for Vox Sanguinis. She has served ISBT as a past chair and member of the Working Party on Red Cell Immunogenetics and Blood Group Terminology as well as a member of the Working Party on Rare Donors.
Nelson Hirokazu Tsuno
Nelson H Tsuno currently holds the positions of Deputy Director General of the Japanese Red Cross Kanto-Koshinetsu Block Blood Center, Senior Director of the Laboratory of the same blood center, Visiting Associate Professor at Keio University School of Medicine, and Visiting Researcher at the University of Tokyo. He has more than 20 years working experience in the transfusion medicine field, in both the university hospital and the blood service. He has chaired the ISBT Platelet Immunobiology WP with Dr Sentot Santoso and Prof. Ulrich J Sachs until 2021, and started activities of the WP in Asia by organizing training courses and workshops. He is also an active member of the ISBT Granulocyte Immunobiology WP and the Global Blood Safety WP. His research interests include platelets & granulocytes immunobiology, blood donors/donation, blood safety and donor testing. Presently, he is a section editor of the Vox Sanguinis.
Martin Smid
Martin Smid, MD Medicine, PhD, MBA, has more than 25 years’ experience in blood bank management, transfusion medicine and coagulation. He is managing director of Sanquin Consulting Services and director of the Academic Institute IDTM. He has been a member of the ISBT WP Global Blood Safety from the start in 2010 and was chair from 2018 till 2023. In essence, the WP develops solutions for the low resource environment with already available knowledge. The stepwise access to safe plasma products initiative is a good example. Martin’s main responsibilities include international cooperation and knowledge sharing in international projects and the Management of Transfusion Medicine programme at the Graduate School of Medical Science of the University of Groningen. He has over 60 publications, mainly in the area of blood products and transfusion medicine. In 2024 he was awarded the AATM excellence award.
Pierre Tiberghien
President (2024-2026)
M.D., Ph.D., and clinical hematologist at the Besançon University Hospital until 2009, Pierre Tiberghien was previously director of the Bourgogne France-Comté Etablissement Français du Sang (EFS, the French transfusion public service) as well as of a University INSERM EFS research team on host-graft immune interactions. Professor of medicine, Immunology, at Franche-Comté University, Pierre Tiberghien was also EFS deputy CEO in charge of medicine and research from 2009 to 2017, and is presently senior advisor for European and international medical and scientific affairs at EFS, Paris. Pierre Tiberghien is President of the European Blood Alliance.
ISBT Regional Directors
Marion Vermeulen
ISBT Regional Director Africa (2024-2028)
Marion Vermeulen is the Executive: Transfusion Medicine and Technical Services at the South African National Blood service (SANBS). She has worked for most of her 35 years in Transfusion Transmissible Infections. Her current role consists of the development of the SANBS strategy with direct responsibility for the donation screening, processing, crossmatching, issuing, transportation and logistics of 1 million donations per annum. She obtained her PhD from Stellenbosch University in advancements of transfusion safety with regards to Transfusion Transmissible Infections (TTI). She is an active member of the international society for blood transfusion (ISBT) TTID working party and is the chairperson of the I TRY IT program that provides mentorship to young early career researchers through the ISBT.
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Satyam Arora
ISBT Regional Director South East Asia, Additional Professor, Transfusion Medicine, Post Graduate Institute of Child Health (PGICH), Noida, India
Dr Satyam Arora, MBBS, MD (Transfusion Medicine), CABP (AABB) completed his MD in 2012 from the prestigious Post Graduate Institute Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh, India. He established a pediatric transfusion-focused academic transfusion medicine department at a stand-alone children’s hospital (under the Government) in India and currently working there as an additional professor. He is presently working to establish a dedicated pediatric hematopoietic stem cell transplant and cell therapy centre at the same institute.
He has done various international rotations (observerships) in hematopoietic stem cell transplants (Cleveland Clinic, USA) and Cell Therapy (Centre for Cell and Gene Therapy, Baylor Medical Center, USA). He is a member of the Technical Resource Group (TRG) on blood transfusion services (BTS) under the Directorate General Health Services under the Government of India and an expert member of India's National Donor Vigilance Program. He has been a member of ISBT since 2012 and was a founder member, past chairperson and South-East Asia representative with the Young Professional Council (YPC) of ISBT. Presently he is secretary of the Clinical Transfusion Working Party, co-chair of the Pediatric Transfusions subgroup of ISBT and member of the Hemovigilance Working Party. He is the recipient of many prestigious awards such as “Dr Harold Gunson” Fellowship (2012), the ISBT TTID Working Party Travel Award for Young Scientists (2014), “Young Scientist Award” by the Indian Society of Transfusion Medicine 2021and “Narendra S Bagaria Award” by the Indian Society of Blood Transfusion and Immunohematology (2022). His areas of interest are pediatric transfusions, hematopoietic stem cell transplants, apheresis science and hemovigilance.
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Arwa Z. Al-Riyami
Regional Director Eastern Mediterranean
Dr Al Riyami is a Senior Consultant Hematopathologist at Sultan Qaboos University Hospital and the National Hematology and Bone Marrow Transplant Center at the University Medical City in Oman. She is currently a member of the ISBT Standing Committee on Ethics, the Editorial Board of Vox Sanguinis, and serves as Editor of the Vox Sanguinis International Forum. She previously served as Chair of the ISBT Clinical Transfusion Working Party and the ISBT Young Professionals Council, and also represented the Eastern Mediterranean region on the Council. Dr Al Riyami is the Chair of the Local Organizing Committee for the upcoming ISBT Muscat Congress in November 2027.
Dr Al Riyami is also a member of the World Health Organization Advisory Group on Blood Regulation, Availability, and Safety and a board member of the Arab Transfusion Medicine Forum. Her expertise includes hematopathology, transfusion medicine, cellular therapy, medical education, and research.
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Kazuhiko Ikeda
Kazuhiko Ikeda, MD, PhD, is Professor and Chair of the Department of Blood Transfusion and Transplantation Immunology at Fukushima Medical University School of Medicine, and Director of the corresponding division at Fukushima Medical University Hospital. After graduating from Fukushima Medical University, he developed broad clinical expertise in hematology, transfusion medicine, and transplantation immunology. From 2007 to 2010, he conducted hematology research at Washington University in St. Louis and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Since returning to Fukushima, he has advanced patient care, medical education, and research, and has served as Professor and Chair since 2017. His areas of expertise include hematology, transfusion and cellular therapy, and basic research in hematopoiesis. He has held leadership roles in professional societies, including the Japan Society of Transfusion Medicine and Cell Therapy, and contributes to the field through clinical practice, research, education, editorial work, and patient-support activities.
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Yanli Ji
Regional Director Western Pacific
Yanli Ji start to work in the Institute of Clinical Blood Transfusion in Guangzhou Blood Center since she got the PhD degree in 2008 from Sun Yat-Sen University in China till now. From 2010 to 2011, she worked as a visiting scholar in Sanquin Research. Her interests are the research of RBC blood group genotyping and its application in the Chinese population, rare donor program, blood group reference testing, and clinical consults. The routine Asian-type DEL testing was firstly carried out in their lab to avoid anti-D prophylaxis in Asian-type DEL pregnant women in China. She was a member of the first ISBT young professional council. Now she is a member of ISBT working party of Red Cell Immunogenetics and Blood Group Terminology, and the vice director of immunohematology Committee of CSBT (Chinese Society of Blood Transfusion).
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Mickey Koh
Regional Director Europe
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Brian Custer
Brian Custer, PhD, MPH
Brian Custer is the Director of Vitalant Research Institute in San Francisco, a Senior Vice President of Research and Scientific Programs at Vitalant, and an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine at the University of California San Francisco. He holds a Master of Public Health in Epidemiology and PhD in Health Outcomes Research from the University of Washington in Seattle. In addition to his role on the ISBT Board, he is the chair of the ISBT Transfusion Transmitted Infectious Diseases Working Party, a member of the Big Data Working Party, and co-founder of the I TRY IT programme. He is a principal investigator of several US NHLBI and FDA-funded national and international research studies and has authored over 275 publications.
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