PhD student Suzanne Fustolo wins European Young Investigator Award

Suzanne Fustolo-GunninkSuzanne Fustolo-Gunnink, PhD student at Sanquin, has won the Young Investigator Award from the European Society for Pediatric Research. She previously showed that to prevent bleeding and mortality in preterm infants with severe thrombocytopenia, a restrictive platelet transfusion protocol is better than a liberal protocol.

She has now performed an additional analysis that shows that this applies to all neonates, irrespective of their baseline risk of bleeding or mortality.

Suzanne collaborates with a large team of international researchers and is supervised by Anske van der Bom, Karin Fijnvandraat, Enrico Lopriore and Simon Stanworth. Their research improves care for premature babies worldwide. After her thesis defence in January, Suzanne will continue her research as a postdoctoral researcher at the department of Clinical Transfusion Research.

Papers

Platelet and red cell transfusions for neonates: lifesavers or Trojan horses? Fustolo-Gunnink SF, Roehr CC, Lieberman L, Christensen RD, Van Der Bom JG, Dame C, Del Vecchio A, Keir AK, Curley A, Stanworth SJ, Lopriore E.

Randomized Trial of Platelet-Transfusion Thresholds in Neonates. Curley A, Stanworth SJ, Willoughby K, Fustolo-Gunnink SF, Venkatesh V, Hudson C, Deary A, Hodge R, Hopkins V, Lopez Santamaria B, Mora A, Llewelyn C, D'Amore A, Khan R, Onland W, Lopriore E, Fijnvandraat K, New H, Clarke P, Watts T; PlaNeT2 MATISSE Collaborators.

  • Professor Karin Fijnvandraat, Sanquin Research, Dept of Plasma Proteins en Amsterdam UMC, Dept of Plasma Proteins en Amsterdam UMC, Dept of Ped. Hematologie
  • Professor Enrico Lopriore, Leids Universitair Medisch Centrum, dept neonatology
  • Professor Anske van der Bom, Clinical Transfusion Research, Sanquin
  • Simon Stanworth, NHS Blood and Transplant and Department of Haematology, Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Oxford, UK