It’s been fifty years that the first European child underwent a successful stem cell transplant in the Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands. This jubilee was celebrated on 22 and 23 June 2018 with a symposium and a patient day. The symposium was titled ‘From Past to Present’ and dealt with the long history of stem cell transplantation at the LUMC. Leiden researchers and doctors have made important contributions to the development of this treatment, such as transplant pioneer Jon van Rood. Arjan Lankester, co-coordinator of the Recomb project gives a nice summary of the work of the Willem-Alexander Children’s Hospital that treats about forty children with inherited and acquired immunological and hematological disorders with stem cell transplantation every year. Watch the video here (only in Dutch at the moment).