World-renowned researcher Effie Petersdorf, M.D., will deliver the upcoming Gerhard Schmidt Memorial Lecture in Transplantation Biology and Medicine.

Effie Petersdorf (Photo by Dean Forbes)

The lecture takes place May 9 from 4 to 5 p.m. in Argyros Auditorium in the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center for Cancer Immunotherapeutics & Tumor Immunology.

Petersdorf is a professor of medicine at the University of Washington, a member of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and an attending physician at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance. She is an expert in histocompatibility, the science of matching a patient with a bone marrow donor.

“Dr. Petersdorf has extended our knowledge of the genes we use to identify donors for transplant,” said Stephen J. Forman, M.D., Francis and Kathleen McNamara Distinguished Chair in Hematology and Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation. “Her research has improved our ability to transplant patients both safely and successfully.”

Petersdorf will speak about the “Immunogenetics of Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation.”

The Schmidt lectureship furthers the legacy of Gerhard Schmidt, M.D., who began the Autologous Stem Cell Transplant program at City of Hope and started the Histocompatability Laboratory at City of Hope in 1975. Schmidt died from lung cancer in 1993.

“It is fitting to have Dr. Petersdorf as our speaker given that Gerhard Schmidt established the lab to identify family donors when transplant started at City of Hope,” Forman said. “He also performed the first unrelated donor transplant in our program.”

The annual lectureship is awarded to physicians and researchers who — like Schmidt — advanced the field of hematopoietic cell transplantation.

The popular event ushers in another beloved campus tradition — the “Celebration of Life” Bone Marrow Transplant Reunion, which this year takes place May 11. This also marks the second year of a new tradition: To acknowledge everyone’s role in the program, on May 10 the transplant team will provide cupcakes for all City of Hope staff.