With more than 10,500 global members, SOHO is poised to educate hematologic oncologists from every corridor of the Earth. The SOHO Ambassador Program powers this reach, with back-to-back international meetings that bookend the SOHO Annual Meeting and showcase the society’s expanding global footprint.
The first SOHO Annual Meeting was held at the Hilton-Americas Houston in Houston, Texas, in 2013, and in just over a decade, what began in one Hilton ballroom in Houston has now expanded across cities all over the world in the form of local regional meetings.
SOHO co-founder and Ambassador Program Chair Hagop Kantarjian, MD, launched the Ambassador Program the same year as the first SOHO meeting, with the goal of sharing the expertise and knowledge from the world’s leading hematologic oncologists.
Ambassador program launches
In 2018, the first-ever SOHO regional meeting was held in São Paulo, Brazil. SOHO Brazil (aka Sintoma) is led each year by Phillip Scheinberg, MD, PhD, SOHO’s 2024-2025 president and head of the Division of Hematology at the Hospital A Beneficência Portuguesa de São Paulo in Brazil.
“These regional SOHO meetings have added a lot of value to physicians and hematologists all over the world, which is one of the major missions of SOHO,” he said.
Since that first meeting in Brazil, satellite meetings have now expanded to countries including Turkey, Spain, Italy, MENA (Middle East and North Africa), France, and Israel, with additional meetings planned in Pakistan, the United Kingdom, Egypt, Central Europe, and Latin America.
“It’s very exciting to see the local chapters and editions following the format of SOHO as it was originally designed,” Dr. Scheinberg said.
No matter where SOHO is held, the meeting retains SOHO’s unique design: focused, evidence-based sessions held in a single-room format without parallel tracks, he said.
“I’ve seen a little piece of the SOHO Annual Meeting in Houston show up in Madrid, Rome, and other cities—really focused on hematologic malignancies, strong speakers, and meaningful discussion,” Dr. Scheinberg said.
The SOHO education committee chair for multiple myeloma, Thomas G. Martin, MD, who attended SOHO Brazil in May and gave three talks, said the Brazil meeting was a 2025 highlight for him.
“I was very humbled to be invited,” Dr. Martin said. “The questions that came from the audience were right on par. It was nice to interact with Phil [Scheinberg] and the Brazilian physicians. Honestly, it was one of my favorite meetings this year.”
In May, SOHO Israel also held its meeting, even with the challenges of the ongoing war in the region.
“Five speakers were supposed to come physically but due to the foreign airlines’ cancellations … only one speaker, Richard Stone, MD, arrived physically,” Pia Raanani, MD, ambassador to SOHO Israel and head of the Institute of Hematology at the Davidoff Cancer Center in the Rabin Medical Center, told SOHO Insider in an email right after the meeting.
Even with the challenges, participants remarked that the meeting had the SOHO ambience, she said.
“Colleagues [said] we managed to bring [the SOHO Annual Meeting] to Israel, especially to the more peripheral hospitals that travel less to the big conferences,” Dr. Raanani said. “This made me feel so good because that is exactly the goal of SOHO as I understand it.”
Bringing SOHO abroad
SOHO MENA Ambassador Elias Jabbour, MD, a professor in the Department of Leukemia at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, explained that the motivation behind bringing SOHO abroad was rooted in the mission of the society’s founders.
“The mission of the founders of SOHO was to promote excellence across the world,” he said. “People who live close to Houston or who can afford to travel have the privilege to attend the SOHO Annual Meeting, but many cannot. The idea came [to be] that we would go to the countries themselves, educate physicians there, and exchange ideas with them.”
For Dr. Jabbour, the decision was also deeply personal: “Being from the Middle East and from Lebanon, I felt I owed it to my people to bring SOHO to them. That was my passion and what drove me to be involved with SOHO across the world, especially in Turkey and Lebanon.”
He described those experiences as some of the most rewarding of his career.
“My experience has been nothing but amazing—meeting different people, especially young investigators who are hungry to succeed,” he said. “They see us as role models, and it is very meaningful to interact with them, give them advice, and to hear about their own struggles and journeys.”
SOHO Turkey, he noted, has also become a special meeting.
“SOHO Turkey has been great. Istanbul is at the crossroads of two continents, each one bringing different experiences,” Dr. Jabbour said. “We have celebrated this for six years now.”
SOHO MENA, meanwhile, is newer and has also suffered challenges because of the ongoing war in the region.
“Last year was difficult because of the war, but with the ceasefire, we hope the situation will be better. We are going back with energy and gathering people from the MENA region.”
The other benefit of the Ambassador program is to invest in the next generation, Dr. Jabbour said.
“We have put together a great program and dedicated time for the exchange of ideas, especially to nurture young investigators and show them excellence,” he said. “Hopefully, in the future, these people will become the next leaders in the field, both regionally and worldwide.”
A year of firsts
This year, the first regional meeting for SOHO Spain took place in Madrid. With more than 400 attendees, the meeting was a success in bringing together international clinicians.
The meeting was directed by Adolfo de la Fuente, MD, chief of hematology at MD Anderson Cancer Center Madrid, and Guillermo Garcia-Manero, MD, of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
“As past president of SOHO and as an American hematologist from Spain, it was amazing for me to see this meeting take place in Madrid,” Dr. Garcia-Manero wrote in an editorial for SOHO Insider. “The level of Spanish hematology is incredible, and together with leading international experts, I strongly believe that the two days of lectures and interaction were very positive and educational. The atmosphere of the meeting was collegial and a constructive experience. I want to congratulate Dr. de la Fuente for organizing an amazing meeting.”
In November, the first SOHO Pakistan meeting will take place in Rawalpindi, the twin city of the country’s capital, Islamabad. Raheel Iftikhar, FCPS (Medicine), FCPS (Clinical Haematology), and SOHO Ambassador to Pakistan, called the event historic for the region.
“The first SOHO Pakistan meeting marks a historic milestone for hematology in the region. Our collaboration with the Society of Hematologic Oncology (SOHO) brings cutting-edge science, global expertise, and practice-changing insights to our doorstep,” Dr. Iftikhar wrote in an email to SOHO Insider.
Dr. Iftikhar, who is a consultant clinical hematologist and hematopoietic stem cell transplantation physician at the Armed Forces Bone Marrow Transplant Centre in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, noted that the regional SOHO meeting provides the local community an important opportunity to connect.
“For the Pakistani hematology and oncology community, this meeting offers an excellent opportunity to engage with international leaders, build research networks, and accelerate the adoption of modern therapies. We hope this initiative will improve standards of care, foster collaboration, and ultimately improve outcomes for patients with blood cancers across Pakistan and beyond.”
The SOHO Ambassador Program appoints experts from around the world to represent SOHO in their geographic regions. Ambassadors share local developments in hematologic oncology with SOHO and promote its educational resources within their communities. Visit soho.click/donate to support the SOHO Ambassador program.
Scan the QR code to donate now or stop by the SOHO Boutique (located near the SOHO Skybridge entrance) to make a donation.
Visit the SOHO 2025 meeting news page for more coverage from the meeting.
