Talk Title: “Realigning CAR-T therapy use with emerging clinical and biological insights in child and adolescent blood cancers”

Owen Smith is Professor of Child, Adolescent & Young Adult Oncology and Professor of Haematology in the School of Medicine, Trinity College Dublin. Professor Smith is Consultant Paediatric Haematologist at Children’s Health Ireland, National Clinical Lead for Child, Adolescent & Young Adult cancers at the National Cancer Control Programme in Ireland and is currently Chair of the Adolescent & Young Adult Cancer Committee of the European Society for Paediatric Oncology [2022-2025].

Professor Smith entered Trinity College Dublin in 1976 to read Natural Sciences and graduated with a moderatorship in Biochemistry in 1980. He went on to graduate in Medicine from Trinity in 1985 and after 9 years postgraduate training at the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine and Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital, University College London he was appointed Consultant Haematologist at the National Children’s and St James’s Hospitals, Dublin. Between 1995 and 1999, Professor Smith was successively lecturer in Haematology, senior lecturer in Haematology, before being appointed Professor of Haematology at the Faculty of Medical and Dental Sciences at Trinity College Dublin in 2002. Since 2002, Professor Smith has worked exclusively as a Consultant Paediatric Haematologist at Children’s Health Ireland at Crumlin.

Professor Smith is a principal investigator at the National Children’s Research Centre, Crumlin, and Systems Biology Ireland at University College Dublin. His two main areas of research have focused on evidence-based randomised peer-reviewed haemato-oncology clinical trials with a focus on clinical questions within all domains of paediatric and adolescent blood and cancer, and the elucidation of the relationship between the protein C activation pathway and systemic inflammatory response sepsis syndromes.

One of Professor Smiths’ major contributions to Irish medicine has been through the promotion of clinical research as evidenced by; a significant expansion of clinical paediatric scholarship with excellent research outputs, a strengthening of national and international academic collaborations, and the nurturing, education, and career development of the present generation of Irish consultant paediatric haematologists. In addition, Professor Smith’s has a strong record of championing significant national developments in child and adolescent health in this country over the two decades.

The co-author of more than 450 research original articles, letters, books, book chapters and papers, Professor Smith is a Fellow of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, Royal College of Pathologists, Royal College of Physicians of Dublin, Royal College of Physicians London, Royal College of Physicians Glasgow, and Royal College of Physicians Edinburgh. He is/has been a member of numerous associations and societies, including; the Medical Research Council Childhood Leukaemia Working Party, Children’s Oncology Group [USA], the International Berlin Frankfurt Munster Study Group for Childhood Leukaemia, the United Kingdom Children’s Cancer Group, European Working Group on paediatric aplastic anaemia and myelodysplastic syndromes. He is an international advocate for children and adolescents with rare diseases and for expanded access to expensive drugs.

In 2015 Professor Smith was conferred honorary Commander in the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his life-long work on cancer in children and adolescents by Queen Elizabeth, on the advice of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.