Von Willebrand Disease: Recognising, Screening and Impact

Dr Vickie McDonald is a consultant haematologist at the Royal London Hospital, London, UK. Her main interests are disorders of coagulation, including ITP. She looks after patients with inherited and acquired disorders of clotting and platelets and runs specialist clinics in ITP. She is an honorary senior lecturer at Queen Mary University of London and is the national chief investigator for the UK ITP registry in addition to the PI and CI for several trials in ITP, both early and late phase studies.

Rosa Sonja Alesci, MD, health economist, underwent medical training at the Goethe University Hospital Frankfurt, Germany. She started her internal medicine training at Mannheim University Hospital and received her MD at the Ruprecht-Karls-University of Heidelberg. She is currently the director of the IMD blood coagulation centre (Bad Homburg/Frankfurt/Wiesbaden). She deals with one of the biggest cohort of patients with VWD in Germany. She was awarded with the Achieve Program in 2010 and wass the winner of the Hermansky lecture regarding treatment of the VWD also in 2010. Since 2007, she has led and/or developed several investigational clinical trials for patients with bleeding disorders either as study chair, principal investigator or site principal investigator. She is an active member on the „Arbeitskreis Hämostaseologie“ of the German Society of Hematology and Oncology (DGHO) and member of the mecidal advisory board of the „German alliance for security of Hemophilia“. Further, she works unsalaried together with patient organisations. Her activity has been mainly focused on several aspects of clinical research in von Willebrand disease, rare bleeding disorders and ITP. In particular, she is an expert in the question of anticoagulation in patients with haemorrhagic diathesis and in treatment of pregnancy in those patients.

Dr Alison Dougall is the Dental Consultant in Medically Complex Patients at Dublin Dental Hospital and Director of the Doctorate Programme in Special Care Dentistry at Trinity College Dublin. She educates dentists at undergraduate postgraduate and specialist level has led oral health services for people with a wide range of rare bleeding disorders at the National Coagulation Centre in Dublin for 15 years and has published a significant number of peer reviewed research papers in this area. She is the former chair of the dental committee of the World Federation of Haemophilia and is on the Medical Advisory Board of the European Haemophilia Consortium. She is currently the President of the International Society for Disability and Oral Health in 2017 she was voted the HMI Health Leader of Ireland for her work developing integrated oral health care pathways for people with inherited bleeding disorders. 

Dr Mazzeffi is a cardiothoracic anesthesiologist and intensive care physician. He is currently Vice Chair for Faculty Affairs and Development in the department of anesthesiology at University of Virginia Health. He is an active clinical researcher with an interest in hemostasis, viscoelastic coagulation testing, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, and acquired Von Willebrand Syndrome in patients on mechanical circulatory support. He is an active teacher and mentor for medical students, anesthesiology residents and fellows.

Jan Blatný, MD, PhD, is Consultant Haematologist at the Department of Paediatric Haematology and Biochemistry, Centre for Thrombosis and Haemostasis and the Director of the Haemophilia Comprehensive Care Centre of University Hospital in Brno, Czech Republic. He is also an Associate Professor of Paediatrics at Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic. His research interests encompass paediatric haematology, thrombosis and haemostasis, and life-threatening bleeding. He is a member of the Working Party on population PK of the ISTH SSC Subcommittee on Factor VIII and IX and Rare Bleeding Disorders. In addition to ISTH, Dr Blatný is a member of numerous national and international haematology organizations. He serves on the steering committee and is a paediatric coordinator of the Czech National Haemophilia Programme, Vice-president and a member of Executive Committee of EAHAD, member of MAG (Medical advisory group) of EHC, a reviewer for several haematology journals, and is on the editorial board for an official journal of Czech Haematology society. Dr Blatný’s publication credits are 9 book chapters and over 100 articles published in peer-reviewed journals

Dr Ana Boban is Head of Haemophilia Centre at the University Hospital Centre Zagreb and Associate Professor of Internal Medicine at the School of Medicine of the University of Zagreb, Croatia. She has specialist degrees in Internal Medicine and Haematology. Dr Boban’s clinical work is in the field of benign haematology with the focus on bleeding disorders and thrombosis. Dr Boban is a member of national and international scientific and medical societies in the field of haemostasis and thrombosis and is currently serving as Executive Committee member of EAHAD. Dr Boban’s research interests include clinical haemophilia, carriers of haemophilia, von Willebrand disease, anticoagulant treatments and ITP.

Dr Gianluigi Pasta, from 2006 to 2017, worked as the orthopaedic consultant of Angelo Bianchi Bonomi Hemophilia Centre of Milan. He is now an orthopaedic consultant at the Hemophilia Centre at Fondazione IRCCS Policlinico San Matteo di Pavia, providing clinical services including musculoskeletal assessment and non-surgical and surgical treatment. Dr Pasta has been an active member of the MSK Committee of the WFH for many years and he is the current Chair of the Committee. He is the author of several published papers and book chapters covering many aspects of musculoskeletal problems of haemophilia (non-surgical and surgical). Dr Pasta is an active member of Italian Hemophilia Centres Association and is the coordinator of the MSK Group.

Jonathan C. Roberts, MD is the Associate Medical Director and Associate Research Director at the Bleeding & Clotting Disorders Institute (BCDI) and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria in Peoria, IL, USA. Dr Roberts graduated from the Southern Illinois School of Medicine in 2008 and completed his internship and residency in Pediatrics at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria at OSF St. Francis Children’s Hospital in 2011. After finishing his residency, Dr Roberts completed fellowship in Pediatric Hematology/Oncology/Blood & Marrow Transplantation at the Medical College of Wisconsin/Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin in 2014 and worked as a post-doctoral fellow under Dr Robert Montgomery and Dr Joan Cox Gill at the BloodCenter of Wisconsin Blood Research Institute. Dr Roberts’ research areas of interest are in advancing novel laboratory assay development to improve the diagnosis of von Willebrand Disease and to enhance individualized clinical management of hemophilia. He has received numerous young investigator research awards, has over 40 peer-reviewed research publications and abstracts including lead author publications in Blood and the New England Journal of Medicine, and has had grant funding from the National Hemophilia Foundation, World Federation of Hemophilia, and NIH among others. Dr Roberts has a personal passion for the bleeding disorders community as he is also an individual with severe hemophilia A.