News Updates

Success at BBTS Glasgow 2026!

Muskaan Pal was given a Margaret Kenwright Award by BBTS at their Glasgow 2026 conference. This prestigious honour presented by BBTS recognises outstanding early-career scientists, clinicians and researchers in the field of transfusion medicine. Muskaan submitted a top-scoring abstract making her eligible for this award, and she presented her work on the ECHO project, with the abstract titled: "The Beginning Stays With You: How Pre-Donation Negative Emotions Shape Donor Memory"

Congratulations to Muskaan and everyone who worked on the ECHO project!

BBTS Glasgow 2026

The PHB Lab all attended BBTS Glasgow 2026, with a range of talks and posters on display. Eamonn presented his keynote talk on EDI in blood donation, as well as his talk on why behavioural science matters in blood research. Muskaan presented her work on negative emotions shaping donor memory (for which she won a prize), and Niall, Richard and Robert all presented posters from their variety of projects, with Richard presenting his as a flash talk!

It was a delight to present our lab's work to the wider blood community, as well as to learn more from everyone. And, as always, it was an excellent opportunity to meet up with our various collaborators from around the world. We hope to come back in 2027!

Success at ECDHM2025 Hackathon!

Dr. Richard Mills and his team won the Hackathon at ECDHM2025 in Wijk aan Zee with their presentation. When reflecting on the success of their presentation, Richard said: "With NHSBT only just emerging from nearly a year of “amber alert” on blood stocks, finding innovative ways to encourage donations is more important than ever. Forecasting supply, and making this salient to donors could be a powerful way to help prevent future shortages (though more research is still needed)."

Congratulations Richard and team!

Success at ISBT Milan 2025!

Niall O'Hagan was awarded a Harold Gunson Fellowship by ISBT at their Milan 2025 conference. This prestigious fellowship is awarded to Early Careers professionals in the field of transfusion medicine. This was a competitive process, with only the top-scoring abstracts being considered. Niall was presenting his findings from the PROMPT project, with the abstract titled: "I Can't Remember What I Did Last Summer: A signal detection analysis of memory bias in donor screening questionnaires that may reduce blood safety"

Congratulations Niall and the PROMPT team!

ISBT Milan 2025

Professor Eamonn Ferguson, Dr. Richard Mills and Niall O'Hagan all attended ISBT Milan 2025! Eamonn presented a keynote talk on Neurodiversity in blood donation and Niall presented some findings from the PROMPT project on guessing and accuracy on donor questionnaires. Richard took centre stage at the poster exhibition, displaying and discussing his findings on the PROMOTE project. The team also got to network and meet up with some of our collaborators from around the world. We hope to see many friendly and familiar faces in 2026!

Keynote Talk on AI

Muskaan and Richard presented a joint keynote on “AI in Action: Practical Applications for Researchers” for the University of Nottingham School of Psychology PGR Conference 2025. They explored the strengths and limitations of using LLMs to support qualitative research and exploratory analysis, using NHSBT donor campaigns as case studies. This was alongside other practical applications of AI-powered tools for researchers.

Well done both Muskaan and Richard!