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Award Recipient of 34th Scott Murphy Memorial Award Lectureship Announced

Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
6 April 2026

Dr VlahLebanon, NH - It is with great pleasure that the Biomedical Excellence for Safer Transfusion (BEST) Collaborative announces the recipient of the 34th Scott Murphy Memorial Lecture. This lecture will coincide with the LXXI Meeting of BEST to be held in Split, Croatia on Friday April 17, 2026. Applications were received from a number of outstanding candidates and were considered by the BEST Board of Directors. The highly deserving award recipient is Matea Vinkovic Vlah.

Dr. Vlah is a transfusion specialist and PhD candidate working in R&D at the Croatian Institute of Transfusion Medicine, Zagreb, Croatia. Her main interests include blood components, donors, and platelets. She also serves as a teaching assistant at the Faculty of Medicine Osijek (Department of Pathophysiology), teaching in the German-language medical program. She has been involved in European projects, including PETRA and GAPP-PRO. She is a member of the European Hematology Association Specialized Working Group on Transfusion and has been an invited speaker at the EHA Congress 2024 in Madrid and Coagulation Days 2025 in Zagreb. Matea will present “The Mystery of Platelet Aggregates: Do Donor Characteristics Matter?”

About the Scott Murphy Memorial Lecture: The Scott Murphy Memorial Lectureship was established in 2007 by the BEST Collaborative in recognition of the tremendous contribution of the late Dr. Scott Murphy, a past chair of the BEST Collaborative, had made to the field of transfusion medicine and to the science of platelet storage. The BEST Collaborative encourages junior faculty involved in the broadly understood field of transfusion medicine to apply for this unique award. The award recipient is invited to present a lecture at the semiannual BEST Meeting. A list of prior award recipients and their presentation titles can be found HERE. 

About the BEST Collaborative: The Biomedical Excellence for Safer Transfusion (BEST) Collaborative is an international research organization whose objective is to improve the safety of transfusion and cell therapy and related services through the standardization of analytic techniques, development of new procedures and execution of clinical trials in hemotherapy and cell therapy. More than 180 scientific publications have resulted from the Collaborative's work.

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CONTACTS:
Rebecca Cardigan PhD; President of the BEST Collaborative
OR
Ernest Ho, BA, PMP; Executive Director of the BEST Collaborative