Advancing early knowledge in treating leukemias, myelomas and other blood-borne cancers was the hallmark of the late University of Louisville physician-researcher Geoffrey Peter Herzig’s life, so it is a fitting tribute to him that a new symposium in the same field has been established by UofL.

The inaugural Geoffrey P. Herzig, M.D., Memorial Symposium for Hematologic Malignancies and Bone Marrow Transplantation will be held April 8-9 at the Jewish Hospital Rudd Heart & Lung Conference Center, 201 Abraham Flexner Way. Thanks to support from presenting sponsor Jewish Hospital & St. Mary’s Foundation, along with others, there is no cost to attend but registration in advance is required at rebecca.thurman@louisville.edu or 502-562-3367. Continuing education credit is available for physicians and nurses attending the symposium.

Designed for health care professionals, the symposium will cover the latest advances in hematologic malignancies and bone marrow transplantation with speakers from the United States, Canada and England. William Tse, M.D., the Marion F. Beard Chair of Hematology and chief, Division of Blood and Bone Marrow Transplantation at UofL, is symposium chair. Roger Herzig, M.D., who held co-division chief positions prior to Tse with his brother Geoffrey, is honorary co-chair of the symposium.

“Geoffrey Herzig developed or participated in advancing many of the cancer therapies and interventions we take for granted now,” Tse said. “This memorial symposium is an opportunity to honor both the person he was and the innovative spirit that drove his work.”

Herzig died in 2013 after a career that spanned the National Cancer Institute and cancer centers in the states of Missouri, New York and Kentucky. The hematopoietic stem cell dose used in transplantation today was determined by Herzig while he was at the NCI. He also was the founding director of the adult bone marrow transplant program at Barnes Hospital, Washington University at St. Louis. In 1990, Herzig joined the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, N.Y., to focus on research in acute myeloid leukemia, his area of special interest. In 2000, the Herzig brothers came to UofL to co-direct the bone marrow transplant program at UofL and the James Graham Brown Cancer Center, now a partnership of UofL and KentuckyOne Health.

“If you’re a young physician who does bone marrow transplants or treats people with leukemia, you may not realize how much you and your patients owe to Geoff Herzig,” said noted physician-scientist and editor-in-chief of Leukemia, Robert Peter Gale, M.D., Ph.D., of Imperial College London and one of the symposium speakers.

For more details about the symposium, visit the conference website.