SOHO has announced its next two presidents-elect. Valeria Santini, MD, will assume the president-elect position for 2026 and serve as president for the 2027 term, followed by Selina Luger, MD, who will serve as president-elect in 2027 and then president in 2028.
Dr. Santini, who is an associate professor of hematology at the University of Florence Medical School in Italy, has been part of SOHO since the society’s inception in 2012 and serves on the Education Committee, which develops the scientific and educational content of the annual meeting. In addition to the education committee, Dr. Santini also serves on the Steering Committee and the ambassador program.
“I’m quite emotional about this presidency,” Dr. Santini said in a Pathways & Perspectives interview with SOHO Insider. “I’m incredibly honored to become president-elect. It’s truly amazing, especially as someone not based in the US, because it makes the role even more meaningful.”
Dr. Santini will assume the role of SOHO president on September 12, 2026, once the Fourteenth Annual Meeting has concluded. (SOHO 2026 is scheduled for September 9–12, 2026, in Houston at the George R. Brown Convention Center.) Registration for the meeting is now open at soho.click/2026.
Dr. Luger, a professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, has been involved with SOHO for approximately a decade, first joining the society as an invited speaker when the annual meeting was significantly smaller, she explained. Over time, her role expanded to include the Education Committee, where she served as the subcommittee chair for acute lymphoblastic leukemia until 2023. Currently, she serves on both the Education and Steering Committees.
Reflecting on her upcoming presidency, Dr. Luger discussed SOHO’s global presence and how the meeting has evolved since its early days.
“The things we think about have to be relevant not just in North America, but also outside North America,” she said. “It’s a great educational opportunity, but it’s also become a place where people present preliminary research and share new data that we haven’t seen anywhere else.”
Dr. Luger discussed the importance of SOHO’s virtual and ancillary programs, noting that these programs allow clinicians worldwide to learn about the latest data and to directly pose questions to leading experts.
“We need to make it possible for patients and practitioners everywhere to think about how they diagnose patients, how they manage care, how they handle toxicities, and how they deliver treatment,” Dr. Luger said. “I think SOHO, and the ancillary meetings, really provide people with an opportunity to learn how to do that.”
Finally, the field needs to give some thought to the availability of therapies and to “ensure treatment is feasible,” she said.
“Not everyone has the same resources, and some patients may not have the ability to access the types of treatments discussed at meetings like ASH,” Dr. Luger said.
