The 2020 has been a year marked by the pandemic. The global health crisis has slowed down, or even paralysed, the scientific activity of biomedical research centres, especially in Europe.

In this context, the laboratories involved in the Editor project have continued to work on the knowledge of haematological diseases at the rate that the pandemic has allowed, resuming their practically usual research activity in the second half of the year.

In March, a general meeting of the Steering Board took place by videoconference. There they updated the status of the project and progress. In the second half of the year, the researchers practically resumed their scientific activity. Since then, all hubs celebrated a specific meeting for each haematological disease: multiple myeloma (MM) or amyloidosis (AL), follicular lymphoma (FL), myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) and acute myeloid leukaemia (AML).

These scientific meetings, held -also by videoconference- in the last four-month period of the year, were organised to deepen the advancement of research by strengthening collaborations and promoting new relationships between teams from Spain, Italy and the United Kingdom. Thus, in addition to sharing the latest advances and presenting the challenges to be faced in the next year, these meetings aimed to reinforce one of the general objectives of the project: to promote young talent.

An opportunity to advance knowledge of hematologic diseases with scientific leaders in the field

The scientific meetings were developed through brief presentations by the members of each disease group, where the leading role fell to junior researchers. Hannah Armes (UK), Martina Sarchi (Italy), Càtia Simões (Spain) or Connor Knight (UK) are some young researchers who have wanted to share their experience and the challenges of participating in the project.

Junior researcher testimonies