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Award Recipient of 35th Scott Murphy Memorial Award Lectureship Announced

Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
8 October 2026

Dr YeeLebanon, NH - It is with great pleasure that the Biomedical Excellence for Safer Transfusion (BEST) Collaborative announces the recipient of the 35th Scott Murphy Memorial Lecture. This lecture will coincide with the LXXII Meeting of BEST to be held in Atlanta, Georgia, USA on Wednesday, October 14 at the OMNI Atlanta at Centennial Park. Applications were received from a number of outstanding candidates and were considered by the BEST Board of Directors. The highly deserving award recipient is Marianne Yee, MD, MSCR.

Dr. Yee is a pediatric hematologist/oncologist at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and Emory University. Her clinical focus is sickle cell disease, particularly management of chronic transfusion therapy and preparation for curative and transformative therapies. Her clinical and translational research examines red blood cell survival and clearance in individuals with sickle cell disease. Using biotin-labeling, her research assesses patient-related and donor/component-related factors that contribute to accelerated clearance of transfused RBCs. Her current R01-funded research program is examining the impact of donor RBC characteristics, including alpha-thalassemia trait and G6PD deficiency, on transfusion outcomes. Marianne will present “Donor RBC Survival in Recipients with Sickle Cell Disease?”

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