City of Hope has cause to celebrate two major accomplishments for its bone marrow transplant program this year — the 10,000th transplant procedure and the program’s 35th anniversary. To help commemorate these achievements, the program’s founder will return to deliver the annual lecture that memorializes another distinguished figure in the program’s history.

Karl Blume (Photo courtesy of Karl Blume)

Karl G. Blume, M.D., will present the Gerhard Schmidt Memorial Lecture in Transplantation Biology and Medicine on April 27 from 4 to 5 p.m. in Argyros Auditorium. The lecture honors City of Hope researcher Gerhard Schmidt, M.D., who died of cancer in 1993.

“It is with pride that I return to City of Hope to deliver this lecture named after my former doctoral student, Gerhard Schmidt, who made seminal contributions to the field of clinical research,” said Blume, who currently is professor emeritus of medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine and associate director for cancer research program planning at Stanford University Cancer Center.

Blume joined City of Hope in 1975 and founded the institution’s bone marrow transplant program. Three years later, he became head of what then was known as the Department of Hematology, Bone Marrow Transplantation and Blood Transfusion Services and continued to build the program for nearly a decade.

He left City of Hope in 1987 to establish Stanford University’s bone marrow transplantation program.

“We welcome Dr. Blume back to City of Hope and to the bone marrow transplant program he helped create and lead to prominence,” said Stephen J. Forman, M.D., Francis and Kathleen McNamara Distinguished Chair in Hematology and Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation and chair of the Department of Hematology & Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation. “Under his direction, clinical research and care flourished, and he helped save the lives of countless patients.”

The presentation is titled “Transplantation of Allogeneic Hematopoietic Cells: History, Achievements and Challenges.”

Blume said he will discuss “how the accomplishments in basic, translational and clinical research have made this invasive treatment procedure safer and more successful.

“Dr. Forman and his colleagues have been great leaders in this field. Their work has not only resulted in a large number of transplant procedures, but in outstanding treatment outcomes. They are also highly successful investigators who have contributed important new knowledge to this area of clinical research.”

Since leaving City of Hope, Blume has headed Stanford Cancer Center’s successful efforts to gain comprehensive cancer center status from the National Cancer Institute. He also helped found the American Society for Blood and Bone Marrow Transplantation to promote research and clinical practice in the field. In 2006, he

received that organization’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

He has served on medical advisory boards of Cellerant Therapeutics Inc. and StemCyte Inc., and he is co-editor of “Thomas’ Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation,” dubbed the “bible of bone marrow transplantation,” with Nobel Laureate E. Donnall Thomas, M.D., and Forman.

The Gerhard Schmidt Memorial Lectureship is awarded annually to physicians and researchers who are advancing the science of hematopoietic cell transplantation. The lecture also will usher in the 35th annual Bone Marrow Transplant Reunion, which takes place April 29.