The Ohio State University is now an official member of the European LeukemiaNet (ELN), a European Union-funded organization of physicians, scientists and patients who focus on leukemia. The organization has 194 participating centers in 39 countries, and 1,000 researchers and associates. Along with the United States, other non-European member countries include Israel, Lebanon and Russia.
The ELN integrates more than 100 chronic- and acute-leukemia trial groups and more than 100 academic and industry partners across Europe involved in diagnostics (cytogenetics and genomics), treatment research, tumor registry and guidelines development, to form a cooperative network for progress in leukemia-related research and health care.
OSUCCC – James researcher Clara D. Bloomfield, MD, Distinguished University Professor, Ohio State University Cancer Scholar and Senior Adviser, and William Greenville Pace III Endowed Chair in Cancer Research, played a key advisory role beginning in 2000 to help organize the network. She worked with European colleagues to help unify a number of independent leukemia cooperative groups into an interacting, collaborative system, first in Germany, then more generally in Europe, with funding provided by the European Union.
ELN membership offers OSUCCC – James leukemia researchers broad, international opportunities for collaborative studies, the exchange of information and ideas, and the development of widely applied treatment guidelines.