St. Jude Children's Research Hospital will host the Scientific Symposium on Bone Marrow Failure and Myelodysplastic Syndromes: From Discovery to Future Strategies on October 25–27, 2026, in partnership with the North American Pediatric Aplastic Anemia Consortium (NAPAAC). Pediatric BMF and MDS span more than 20 disease entities with at least 150 causative genes and despite rapid progress in genetic diagnostics and understanding disease mechanisms, the development of targeted therapies has been slow.
The program opens Sunday afternoon (Oct 25, 2026) with a international collaboration session and presentation of patient advocacies, bringing together the major foundations in inherited bone marrow failure. The scientific program follows on Monday and Tuesday, with sessions on hematopoiesis, genomics, disease mechanisms, and emerging therapies — spanning novel transplant strategies, and genome engineering. The program will end tentatively Tuesday early afternoon.
We will bring together investigators from the NAPAAC consortium with international faculty from Europe, South America, Australia and Asia who will present on inherited BMF transplantation, gene therapy, and predisposition syndromes. Dedicated time is reserved for NAPAAC working groups to discuss progress and define future priorities.
The symposium is organized by Marcin Wlodarski, MD, PhD (Hematology), Alyssa Kennedy, MD, PhD (Comprehensive Cancer Center), and Senthil Bhoopalan, MD, PhD (Bone Marrow Transplantation and Cellular Therapy).
Early bird registration will open soon for this in person event.
For more information email APPStudentPlacements@stjude.org