Dear Colleagues,

As my last note to TID members as President, I want to thank you for the honor of serving in this role. While it has been an incredibly rough 2 years for all of us, with our goals and priorities shifted by SARS-CoV-2, we still accomplished a significant amount of work.

I think the biggest success for TID has been expanding our scope and attempting to bring in a broader representation of the global Transplant Infectious Diseases community. The two best examples of this are our newly elected Council members and the upcoming TID 2021 Virtual Symposium. As part of a broader revision of our bylaws, we expanded the Council, allowing for more regional representation to be present. We were aggressive in attempting to get nominations of people from all parts of the world. And starting September 15, we’ll welcome likely the most globally representative Council to date:

President:
Ban Hock Tan, Singapore (2021-2023)

President-Elect:
John Baddley, USA (2019-2023)

Past-President:
Michael G. Ison, USA (2021-2023)

Secretary-Treasurer:
Wanessa Trindade Clemente, Brazil (2021- 2025)

Councilors:
Jose Maria Aguado, Madrid, Spain (2019-2023)
Maricar Malinis, Connecticut, USA (2019-2023)
Alessandra Mularoni, Palermo, Italy (2021-2025)
Maristela Pinheiro Freire, Brazil (2021-2025)
Stephanie Pouch, Atlanta, Georgia, USA (2021-2025)
Marcelo Radisic, Argentina (2021-2025)
Monica Slavin, Melbourne, Australia (2021-2025)
Ines Ushiro-Lumb, Bristol, UK (2021-2025)
Siriorn Watcharananan, Thailand (2021-2025)
Cameron Wolfe, Durham, NC USA (2021-2025)

The TID 2021 Virtual Symposium, is being planned under the leadership of John Baddley with the help of Bill Rawlinson, Carlos Cervera and Ines Usiro-Lumb. The planned symposium will take place on November 17 & 18 from 7-11AM EDT and will have a diverse set of speakers, representing all corners of the world and will include both junior and senior clinicians. I’m excited about this Symposium and hope to “see” all of you there. Visit our website at https://www.tts.org/tid in the coming weeks for more details.

In addition, we have accomplished some important business over the past 2 years that will prepare the Section to be on more solid footing moving forward. We have begun and are almost done with the process of becoming independently incorporated. This will allow us to sign contracts and further solidify relationships, such as the renewal of the link between the section and our journal, Transplant Infectious Disease. We have provided expertise and leadership to TTS and to our community during the COVID-19 pandemic. We early on drafted general guidelines, led by Ban Hock Tan. Later in the pandemic, we modularized the guidelines with the help of a range of clinicians. We should be incredibly proud of these accomplishments.

I want to thank Clarisse Machado for her longstanding commitment to the Section and her amazing support as President and Past-President of the Section. While she is rolling off the Council, I’m sure we can count on her support and expertise for years to come. Likewise, Silvia Campos is completing her 4-year term. Over the years, she has contributed greatly to the Council and provided important insight and experience. Thank you both for your hard work, time and support of the community.

I want to send a special thank you to Stephanie Pouch, who has served as our TTS Education Committee Liaison and leader of significant educational content. Having her join the Council will continue to leverage her expertise and experience. She has helped to develop the programing for the TTS 2020 meeting and several important webinars, including the highly successful recent COVID-19 donor webinar. Thanks for all you have done and congratulations on joining the Council.

Lastly, I want to congratulate Ban Hock Tan as he takes over as President of TID. Ban Hock has remained a calm and steady voice of the Council over the years I’ve had the opportunity to work with him. He has led a number of key efforts including working with Stephanie on programing the TTS 2020 TID components, leading the COVID-19 guidelines effort and numerous other critical educational opportunities. Despite significant time differences, we all knew Ban Hock would take the time to join any call. His enthusiasm and commitment is second to none and I can say with confidence, the Section is in good hands with him at the helm.

Thank you all for your support. Stay safe and remain committed to advancing our field in collaboration with the TID Section of TTS!

Sincerely,