Iain McInnes is Head of College of Medical Veterinary and Life Sciences, and Vice Principal, University of Glasgow, and serves also as the Muirhead Professor of Medicine and Versus Arthritis Professor of Rheumatology in the University.

He is Director of the Versus Arthritis Centre of Excellence for Inflammatory Arthritis, lead from the University of Glasgow that includes Universities of Oxford, Newcastle and Birmingham. He serves as a member of the Greater Glasgow and Clyde Health Board. He is a Trustee on the Board of Versus Arthritis. He is past chairman of the Foreum (Foundation for European Rheumatology Research) Scientific Committee, lead the European Roadmap programme that is defining the research agenda for European rheumatology for the next decade and is Past-President of the European Alliance of Rheumatology Associations (EULAR). Under these auspices he led the creation of the first pan-European Rheumatology Research Centre launched in 2021.

His work is mainly focused upon the understanding of the pathogenesis of immune mediated inflammatory diseases and encompasses basic discovery immunology through phase 1 and proof of concept experimental medicine clinical trials to leadership of pivotal phase 3 trials in the area of immune biology. His laboratory group performed original discovery work supporting the therapeutic targeting of a several inflammatory cytokines.

More recently he has focused on the biology of myeloid cells in the pathogenesis of a number of immune diseases. He has served on a number of scientific advisory groups adjacent to the pharmaceutical industry, mainly in the area of development of novel immune modifying agents. He has published >550 peer-reviewed original and review articles with an h-index of >130 equating to around 100,000 citations. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences. He was made Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2019 by HM Queen Elizabeth II.

Dr. Ramiro is a consultant rheumatologist and senior researcher at Leiden University Medical Centre and Zuyderland Medical Centre, the Netherlands. Dr. Ramiro also has an appointment at Nova Medical School in Lisbon as a Visiting Professor.

She obtained her PhD on long-term outcomes in axial spondyloarthritis at the University of Amsterdam before going on to complete her specialist rheumatology training at Leiden University Medical Centre. She is a clinical epidemiologist focusing on outcomes research. Her main interests are axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA), rheumatoid arthritis (RA), imaging and methodological and analytical aspects.

Sofia Ramiro currently has an appointment at Nova Medical School in Lisbon as a Visiting Professor. Sofia Ramiro served as a Chair for EMEUNET, the Emerging EULAR Network, and also of Young Assessment of Spondyloarthritis international Society (ASAS). She was a member of the EULAR Scientific Committee for 2016-2020 and is currently a member of the ASAS Executive Committee. Sofia Ramiro has been involved in many EULAR taskforces for the elaboration of recommendations, namely management of axSpA, RA, psoriatic arthritis and imaging in vasculitis. Sofia Ramiro has authored more than 250 peer-reviewed manuscripts.

Prof. Dr. Rieke Alten is Professor of Medicine and Head of the Department of Internal Medicine, Rheumatology, Clinical Immunology, Osteology at Schlosspark-Klinik, University Medicine Berlin, where she also serves as the Director of the Rheumatology Research Center.

She received her medical degrees from the Free University Berlin. After graduating she pursued immunology research at Institute of Immunology, University of Zürich (Switzerland).

Prof. Dr. Alten had her training in internal medicine of Free University Berlin, which was followed by a training in Rheumatology in Zürich. In 1984 she received board certification in internal medicine, 1985 in rheumatology, 1998 in physical therapy und rehabilitation medicine, 2001 in sports medicine. Since 1990 she was appointed Head of the Department of Internal Medicine, Rheumatology at Schlosspark-Klinik, University Medicine Berlin.

Prof. Dr. Alten’s research interests focus on the development and systematic evaluation of biological and immunomodulatory treatments for the rheumatic diseases.

She has been lead and principle investigator in more than 100 clinical trials of novel therapies in rheumatic diseases and has contributed to several investigator-initiated trials. She was a member in several DMC Committees for new treatment compounds. She published more than 200 original papers, book chapters and reviews.

Prof. Dr. Rieke Alten is a member of the OMERACT Steering Committee of the Flare in Rheumatoid Arthritis Group. She served as board member of German Medical Association, as member of the Institute for Approval of drugs for the German Ministry of Health, as board member of the “Kaiser-Friedrich-Foundation” for postgraduate education in Germany and board member of the German Society of Rheumatology. In 2020 she was appointed to be a member of the Steering committee of the Immune Mediated Inflammatory Disease Forum.

Prof. Xenofon Baraliakos is the Head of Rheumatology at the Rheumazentrum Ruhrgebiet Herne and Professor for Internal Medicine and Rheumatology at the Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany.

Prof. Baraliakos is the current President of ASAS (Assessment of Spondyloarthritis International Society) and the current President-Elect of EULAR. He was the former Chair of the EULAR standing committee for musculoskeletal imaging.

Prof. Baraliakos has won several awards including the Research Award of the European Workshop on Rheumatology Research (EWRR), the EULAR Young Investigator Award, the German patient’s AS Society Award and Excellence in Clinical Research from the European Society for Clinical Investigations.

Moreover, he holds memberships of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR), the Group for Research and Assessment of Psoriasis and Psoriatic Arthritis (GRAPPA) and the German Society of Rheumatology.

His research interests include clinical and academic research in the field of spondyloarthritis, with special emphasis on imaging outcomes and treatment of the disease.

Frank Behrens is Professor of Translational Rheumatology, Immunology and Inflammation Medicine at Goethe-University and Deputy Director of Fraunhofer Institute for translational Medicine and Pharmacology, Frankfurt, Germany

Initially studying biology at Johannes Gutenberg University Doctor Behrens progressed then to study medicine, obtaining his MD from Johann Wolfgang Goethe University. Here he would later receive his training in internal medicine and rheumatology. Having built up the functional area of the clinical rheumatology research at Goethe University Medical Centre he remains in the function of a manager here as well as co-ordinator for the rheumatology division. He is co-founder of the centre for innovative diagnostics and therapy in rheumatology/Immunotherapy (CIRI) at the Goethe University. He is co-responsible for one of the largest investigator-initiated studies in rheumatology in Germany and initiator of NESTRA, the German study network.

Dr Behrens has played a key role in over 150 publications chiefly in rheumatological diseases and clinical trials. His major research interests include regulatory T-Cells and clinical trials applied to immunopharmacology.

Professor Bijlsma is emeritus Professor of Rheumatology at the University Medical Centre Utrecht, The Netherlands, and served as President of the Dutch Society for Rheumatology (1996-2000) and of EULAR (2017-2019). He is an honorary member of ACR (Master), APLAR and EULAR.

He acquired his Medical degree and PhD from the University of Utrecht and has been a Professor of Rheumatology since 1990. He has held a variety of roles from 1992-2008 at the Dutch Society for Rheumatology and from 2007-2021 at EULAR. He is presently President of the Board of Trustees of FOREUM (Foundation for Research in Rheumatology) and Chair of the Advisory Board of the Annals of Rheumatic Diseases.

Professor Bijlsma researches and specialises in immune aspects of rheumatic diseases and Osteoarthritis. He has authored and co-authored over 800 articles published in peer-reviewed international journals, has contributed chapters in a number of textbooks, and has edited and co-edited several books in the field of Rheumatology, including the EULAR Textbooks.

Leonard Calabrese is a Professor of Medicine, Vice Chair of the Cleveland Clinic’s Department of Rheumatic and Immunologic Diseases and the Co-director of the Centre for Vasculitis Care and Research. He also serves as Director of the RJ Fasenmyer Centre for Clinical Immunology at the Cleveland Clinic. He also holds appointments in the Department of Infectious Diseases and the Wellness Institute.

He is a graduate of the Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences. Completed his internal medicine training at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in Ohio, followed by a fellowship in rheumatic and immunologic disease. Professor Calabrese has received numerous awards, including honorary Doctorates of Humane Letters from the Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences and Alma College and the Leonard Tow Humanitarianism in Medicine award from the Arnold P Goldman MD Foundation.

He has particular interest in vascular inflammatory disease of the central nervous system, primary and secondary immunodeficiency states and the intersection of infections and autoimmunity. Over the course of his academic research career, Professor Calabrese has authored over 400 publications including book chapters and peer-reviewed journal articles.

Laura Coates is an Associate Professor and senior clinical research fellow at the Nuffield Department of Orthopaedics, Rheumatology and Musculoskeletal Sciences, at the University of Oxford. She leads the Oxford Psoriatic Arthritis Centre. She is also a member of the Steering Committee of the Group for Research and Assessment of Psoriasis and Psoriatic Arthritis (GRAPPA) and the British PsA Consortium (BritPACT).

Professor Coates completed her rheumatology training and PhD at the University of Leeds within the Leeds Institute of Rheumatology and Musculoskeletal Medicine. She later moved to Oxford in 2017 as an NIHR Clinician Scientist to research optimal therapeutic strategies for patients with psoriatic arthritis (PsA).

She has been involved as either the primary author or co-author of over 400 publications, chiefly in the areas of rheumatology and Psoriatic arthritis. Her research is clinical and focuses on psoriatic arthritis and the spondyloarthritides including early diagnosis of PsA, development of PsA specific and validated outcome measures, optimal treatment pathways and strategies in PsA.

Professor Maurizio Cutolo received his medical degree from Naples University in 1978. He is President-elect of The European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR), incoming President of the International League against Rheumatism (ILAR), and was previously the Chairman-elect of the EULAR Standing Committee for Education and Training (ESCET) between 2008 and 2012. Professor Cutolo has been Vice-President of the Italian Society for Rheumatology (SIR) and is a member of the Scientific Board of the American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association (AARDA) and the International Society for NeuroImmunoModulation (ISNIM). He was founder (1999) and Chairman, and is currently an Executive Committee member of the Study Group on Neuroendocrine Immunology (NEI), and founder and Chair of the Study Group on Capillaroscopy at the American College of Rheumatology (ACR). Professor Cutolo is also founder and Chairman of the EULAR Study Group on Neuroendocrine Immunology of Rheumatic Diseases (NEIRD) (2001–present). Professor Cutolo is an honorary member of the Russian and Hungarian Societies for Rheumatology.

Professor Cutolo is Associate Editor of the Journal of Clinical and Experimental Rheumatology, and an editorial board member of Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, Neuroimmunomodulation, Clinical and Developmental Immunology, Reumatismo, Autoimmunity Review, Journal of Autoimmunity, and Revista Portuguesa de Reumatologia.

Professor Atul A. Deodhar is Professor of Medicine and Medical Director of Rheumatology Clinics in the Division of Arthritis & Rheumatic Diseases at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland. He is board-certified in Internal Medicine and Rheumatology and is a Fellow of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) and the American College of Physicians.

Professor Deodhar completed a fellowship in Rheumatology at Oregon Health & Science University and a research fellowship in Rheumatology at the Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro, United Kingdom. He completed a residency in Internal Medicine and Geriatrics at the Royal Cornwall Hospital as well as at Sassoon General Hospital and King Edward Memorial Hospital in Pune, India. He received his medical degree from the University of Pune and is a member of the Royal College of Physicians in London, United Kingdom.

Professor Deodhar has authored three books, more than 300 peer-reviewed articles, and several book chapters and editorials. He is editor in chief of Best practice and Research Clinical Rheumatology.

He has been a principal or coinvestigator in more than 100 clinical trials, mostly focused on therapies for ankylosing spondylitis, psoriatic arthritis, and rheumatoid arthritis.

Hideto Kameda is a Professor of Rheumatology and Internal Medicine at Toho University. His main areas of expertise are spondyloarthritides, rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus and interstitial lung disease. He is the president of the Japan Spondyroarthritis Society and a director of the Japanese Society for Clinical Immunology and the Japanese Society for Clinical Rheumatology and Related Research, an auditor of the Japanese Society of Inflammation and Regeneration, and a councilor of the Japanese Society of Internal Medicine and the Japan College of Rheumatology. He is an Associate Editor of Cytokine and International Journal of Rheumatic Diseases and an editorial board member for Clinical Rheumatology, Modern Rheumatology and Immunological Medicine.

Philip Mease is a Clinical Professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine, and Director of Rheumatology Research at the Swedish Medical Center in Seattle, Washington, US. His clinical practice is based at Seattle Rheumatology Associates.

Dr Mease obtained his undergraduate and medical degrees at Stanford University Medical School, and he completed his residency in internal medicine at the University of Washington’s School of Medicine, where he also served as Chief Resident and Fellow in Rheumatology.

As well as conducting clinical trials on emerging therapies for rheumatic diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis, and lupus, he also conducts research in disease state metrics and is the Co-chair of three working groups for OMERACT (Outcome Measures in Rheumatology Clinical Trials) on psoriatic arthritis, fibromyalgia, and single-joint assessment. Dr Mease is also a member of the Soluble Biomarker working group.

Dr Mease is a founding organiser and President of GRAPPA (Group for Research and Assessment of Psoriasis and Psoriatic Arthritis), a member of SPARTAN (Spondyloarthritis Research & Treatment Network), and a member of TREG (The Rheumatology Education Group). He has published 18 book chapters and nearly 400 journal articles, and serves as a reviewer for many journals including Arthritis & Rheumatism, Arthritis Care & Research, Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, and Journal of Rheumatology. Dr Mease has been the recipient of the Medical Communicator Award of the American College of Rheumatology.

Doctor Pierre Miossec MD PhD is professor of Clinical Immunology at the University of Lyon, France. He worked with Morris Ziff as a research fellow at the University of Texas in Dallas, where he started his research on the role of cytokines and T cells in arthritis. He was the first to identify the destructive properties of interleukin-17 and to introduce the concept of its production by a new T cell subset. This has led to the targeting of IL-17 in a growing number of diseases.

He has received the EULAR Robecchi Prize for Rheumatology Research (1995), the most prestigious Carol Nachman prize in Rheumatology (2010) for his work on IL-17, the Morris Ziff lecture prize in Dallas (2010), the distinguished basic investigator award of the American College of Rheumatology (2015), the Gerald Weissmann prize, New York University (2016). He has been elected senior member of the Institut Universitaire de France (2011), membre correspondant et titulaire de l’Académie Nationale de Médecine (2016, 2021), and to the prestigious Association of American Physicians in 2019.

Peter Nash is Professor at the School of Medicine, Griffith University, Associate Professor, University of Queensland, and Director of the Rheumatology Research Unit on the Sunshine Coast, Australia. He currently Chairs the ASMPOC of the Australian Rheumatology Association, having Chaired the Therapeutics, and the Professional Affairs committees of the ARA. He has Chaired the NHMRC Musculoskeletal panels and served on the Therapeutics Committee of the Australia and New Zealand Bone and Mineral Society. In addition, he is a founder member and serves on the International Steering Committee of the Group for Research and Assessment of Psoriasis and Psoriatic Arthritis (GRAPPA).

Professor Nash and his group at the Rheumatology Research Unit have been involved in the pivotal registration clinical trials for all modern targeted biologic therapies. He has published over 250 peer-reviewed papers and six book chapters, and was recently recognised as Australian rheumatology leader for citations in the top 20 rheumatology journals over the last 5 years. He serves on the editorial board of Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, RMD Open and Journal of Rheumatology. His special interests include metabolic bone disease and novel therapeutics.

John J. O'Shea, M.D., graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a Bachelor of Science degree from St. Lawrence University, and received a Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of Cincinnati. He then served as an intern and resident in Internal Medicine at the State University of New York Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, New York. Dr O'Shea joined the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 1981 for subspecialty training in Allergy and Immunology in the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. He did additional postdoctoral work in the Cell Biology and Metabolism Branch in the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Dr O’Shea is board certified in Internal Medicine and Allergy and Immunology.

He moved to the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS) in 1994 as Chief of the Lymphocyte Cell Biology Section of the Arthritis and Rheumatism Branch. He was appointed Chief of the Molecular Immunology and Inflammation Branch in 2002, and became Scientific Director and Director of the NIAMS Intramural Research Program in 2005.

Dr O'Shea has served on the editorial boards of multiple journals, including: Immunity, Journal of Experimental Medicine, Journal of Biological Chemistry, Journal of Immunology, and Blood. He has been an invited lecturer at numerous universities and international meetings in the U.S., Canada, Europe and Asia.

Dr O'Shea has authored more than 225 articles. His area of scientific interest is cytokine signal transduction, dissecting the role of Jaks and Stats family transcription in immunoregulation. Dr O'Shea and his colleagues cloned the tyrosine kinase, JAK3, and demonstrated its role in pathogenesis of severe combined immunodeficiency.

Janet Pope is a Professor of Medicine and Rheumatologist at the University of Western Ontario, Schulich School of Medicine. She has published over 600 articles; resulting in several research accolades; and is also a passionate teacher/educator especially in rheumatoid arthritis, lupus and scleroderma. She developed the national rheumatology summer studentships which have increased the number of rheumatologists by exposing medical students to rheumatology. She created and has led the the Canadian Rheumatology Association Leadership program (LEAP), which is a needs-based program for early career rheumatologists.

She currently co-hosts some of the Around the Rheum podcasts after having been featured as a regular guest. Janet has a social media presence on Twitter (@Janetbirdope) where her #ClinicalPearls have a reputation of teaching physical findings to >18,500 followers.

Professor Soriano earned his medical degree from the University of Buenos Aires School of Medicine. He then went on to complete his residency training in internal medicine, specializing in rheumatology at Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires, and completed a fellowship at the Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases, in Bath UK. Prof. Soriano completed his MS in clinical effectiveness at the University of Buenos Aires.
Prof. Soriano is Consultant Professor at Instituto Universitario, Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires.

Prof. Soriano is a Past- President of PANLAR and The Argentinean Rheumatology Society. He also is an active member of the Group for Research and Assessment of Psoriasis and Psoriatic Arthritis (GRAPPA).

Prof. Soriano has authored and co-authored more than 180 peer-reviewed science articles, with his main areas of interest being disease prevention, the role of ultrasound in prognosis and pathogenesis, and PsA.

Prof Soriano has been awarded Master of the American College of Rheumatology, the Argentinean Society of Rheumatology, and PANLAR.

Professor Leonie Taams obtained her PhD in Immunology from Utrecht University, the Netherlands. She went on to undertake postdoctoral studies at the Royal Free and University College Medical School in London. Professor Taams was an integral part of the team who were one of the first to isolate and characterise human regulatory CD4+CD25+ T cells. She was awarded a BBSRC New Investigator Grant in 2004 and became Senior Lecturer in Immunology at King’s College London in 2007, Reader in Immunobiology in 2013, and Professor of Immune Regulation & Inflammation in 2015.

Her research focuses on the cellular and molecular immunological mechanisms that regulate inflammation in human health and disease. She is interested in understanding how inflammation is switched on and off, and why this goes awry in chronic inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and psoriatic arthritis.

In addition to her research, Leonie is Head of the School of Immunology & Microbial Sciences at King’s College London and Editor-in-Chief of the journal Clinical and Experimental Immunology.

Professor Tsutomu Takeuchi completed his medical education at Keio University School of Medicine and is currently Professor of Medicine in the Department of Internal Medicine at the same institution. His major research interests are molecular pathogenesis of systemic autoimmune diseases, targeted therapy in systemic autoimmune diseases, and prediction of therapeutic response. Professor Takeuchi has published more than 100 articles in peer-reviewed journals including Arthritis & Rheumatism, Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, The Journal of Immunology, The Journal of Rheumatology, and The Journal of Clinical Investigation. Professor Takeuchi serves or has served as an editorial board member of the following journals: Rheumatology, Clinical Rheumatology, Clinical Immunology, and Modern Rheumatology. As a reviewer, he is currently serving for Nature Reviews of Immunology, The Lancet, Arthritis & Rheumatism, Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, Rheumatology, Arthritis Research & Therapy, The Journal of Rheumatology, The Journal of Clinical Rheumatology, APLAR Journal of Rhematology, Modern Rheumatology, The Journal of Immunology, European Journal of Immunology, International Immunology, and The American Journal of Pathology.

Lai-Shan Tam, MD, is Division Head and a Professor in the Division of Rheumatology within the Department of Medicine and Therapeutics at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). She is also an Honorary Consultant at the Hospital Authority and has been serving as the Convenor of the APLAR Academy since 2021.

She was President of the Hong Kong Society of Rheumatology from 2011 to 2014, and Vice President of APLAR from 2014-2016. In addition, Professor Tam was a member of the International Task Force Subcommittee of ACR and the Task Force Subcommittee of ACR and on the EULAR Programme Committee from 2016-2019, and EULAR honorary member (since 2019). She serves as the Associate Editor of International Journal of Rheumatic Disease and Arthritis Research and Therapy, and she is also the international advisory board member of the Lancet Rheumatology.

She is the first author or co-author of over 260 articles published in major rheumatology journals. Her research interests include premature atherosclerosis and bone loss in patients with rheumatic diseases.

Kevin L. Winthrop, Professor of Public Health, Infectious Diseases, and Ophthalmology at Oregon Health and Science University, is a former staff infectious disease epidemiologist from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of Tuberculosis Elimination. He has co-authored over 400 publications, many detailing the epidemiologic and clinical aspects of nontuberculous mycobacterial diseases (NTM), tuberculosis, and other infections associated with rheumatic diseases and biologic immunosuppressive therapies. Clinically, he provides regional consultations for mycobacterial diseases and other chronic chest infections and serves as the medical consultant to the Oregon Public Health Division’s TB control program.

His Center for Infectious Disease Studies has served as the lead institution and coordinating center for multiple cohort studies and clinical trials. He has served as a primary or senior investigator in many of these clinical and epidemiologic studies, and frequently collaborates with the Pulmonary Department on studies related to bronchiectasis. He founded the NTM Research Consortium and associated Clinical Trials Network which facilitate collaborative, multi-site grants and clinical trials among patients with NTM. He is a member of the graduate faculty at OHSU where he mentors public health students, medical students, and physicians in post-graduate training.

Dr Wright is a consultant rheumatologist in New York. She received her undergraduate degree at Columbia University and earned her medical and doctorate degrees at NYU School of Medicine. She completed an internship, residency in internal medicine and a fellowship in rheumatology at the NYU Medical Center where she served as Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine.

In 2014, Dr Wright founded the Association of Women in Rheumatology (AWIR) which has since grown to over 40 local chapters throughout the United States with members in 80+ countries. She has served as the President of AWIR since its inception.

Dr Wright has research and clinical interest in the management and treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and other rheumatic diseases. She has served as an investigator of several clinical trials and has given numerous professional lectures around the world.

Dr Wright is a fellow and member of the American College of Rheumatology, and is co-chair of the Equity Group, OMERACT. She has authored or co-authored several articles and is deeply engaged in medical education in Rheumatology.

Iain McInnes is Head of College of Medical Veterinary and Life Sciences, and Vice Principal, University of Glasgow, and serves also as the Muirhead Professor of Medicine and Versus Arthritis Professor of Rheumatology in the University.

He is Director of the Versus Arthritis Centre of Excellence for Inflammatory Arthritis, lead from the University of Glasgow that includes Universities of Oxford, Newcastle and Birmingham. He serves as a member of the Greater Glasgow and Clyde Health Board. He is a Trustee on the Board of Versus Arthritis. He is past chairman of the Foreum (Foundation for European Rheumatology Research) Scientific Committee, lead the European Roadmap programme that is defining the research agenda for European rheumatology for the next decade and is Past-President of the European Alliance of Rheumatology Associations (EULAR). Under these auspices he led the creation of the first pan-European Rheumatology Research Centre launched in 2021.

His work is mainly focused upon the understanding of the pathogenesis of immune mediated inflammatory diseases and encompasses basic discovery immunology through phase 1 and proof of concept experimental medicine clinical trials to leadership of pivotal phase 3 trials in the area of immune biology. His laboratory group performed original discovery work supporting the therapeutic targeting of a several inflammatory cytokines.

More recently he has focused on the biology of myeloid cells in the pathogenesis of a number of immune diseases. He has served on a number of scientific advisory groups adjacent to the pharmaceutical industry, mainly in the area of development of novel immune modifying agents. He has published >550 peer-reviewed original and review articles with an h-index of >130 equating to around 100,000 citations. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences. He was made Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2019 by HM Queen Elizabeth II.

Herve Bachelez is a Professor at the Department of Dermatology of the Saint-Louis University Hospital in Paris, France. Since 2004, he has been a full Professor of Clinical Dermatology at the Université Paris-Diderot/Université de Paris, where he received his PhD in Immunology in 1999.

Professor Bachelez’s clinical and research activities focus on inflammatory skin diseases, mainly psoriasis and psoriasis-related diseases, hidradenitis suppurativa, and lichen planus. He is conducting his basic and translational research at the Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM U1163) in the Laboratory of Genetics of Skin Diseases at the Imagine Institute for Human Genetic Diseases in Necker Hospital, Paris. His areas of scientific research include immunogenetics and molecular mechanisms of the aforementioned immune-mediated and inflammatory skin diseases.

Professor Bachelez has received several scientific awards, including the Robert Degos Award. He is a member of several national and international scientific societies, including the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology (EADV) and the European Dermatology Forum (EDF). He is the past president of the French Society for Dermatological Research and the Group for Research on Psoriasis of the French Society for Dermatology. Internationally, he is a Board Member of the International Psoriasis Council (IPC) and the past president of the European Society for Dermatological Research (ESDR).

Professor Bachelez has published over 295 manuscripts in peer-reviewed journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of Clinical Investigation, the Lancet, and Arthritis and Rheumatism as a leading author.

Melinda Gooderham is a Dermatologist and Medical Director at the SKiN Centre for Dermatology and an Investigator with Probity Medical Research. She is an Assistant Professor at Queens University, a Consultant Physician at the Peterborough Regional Health Centre, a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, and Vice President of the Dermatology Association of Ontario.

She received her MD from the University of Western Ontario in 1999 and then completed her Dermatology residency at the University of Toronto in 2004. Prior to training in medicine, she obtained a Bachelor of Science from Queens University in Kingston in 1992 and a Master of Science from the University of Guelph in 1995.

Dr. Gooderham has been a principal investigator in over 220 clinical trials investigating new therapies for inflammatory skin diseases. She is also actively involved in teaching medical students, residents, nurse practitioners, and physicians with both didactic and clinical hands-on teaching. She practices with a focus on psoriasis, atopic dermatitis, skin cancer, and clinical research. She also contributes to several peer-reviewed dermatology publications as an author and reviewer.

Laura Savage is a Consultant Medical Dermatologist (Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust) and Honorary Senior Lecturer (Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Leeds). She co-leads the complex psoriatic disease, atopic dermatitis and tertiary hidradenitis suppurativa services at the Leeds Centre for Dermatology. Has extensive experience in utilising targeted immunomodulatory therapies across a number of IMIDs.

Dr Savage has a keen research interest in psoriatic disease and is involved as Principal or Chief Investigator in several investigator-initiated and commercial clinical trials, and is published widely in the field of psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis and HS.

She is an elected board member and Vice President of the Group for Research in Psoriasis and Psoriatic Arthritis (GRAPPA), an elected committee member of the British Society of Medical Dermatology (BSMD), and runs the fellowship programme and course organiser for EMD. Dr Savage is also an invited author/member of several treatment guidelines in immune medicated inflammatory diseases (IMIDs). Including, EULAR PsA management guidelines (2024), EULAR Points to Consider for the definition of clinical and imaging features suspicious for progression to psoriatic arthritis (2023), and the BSG IBD management guidelines (2024).

Kenji Kabashima is a Chair/Professor at the Department of Dermatology, Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine, Japan, a Principal Investigator at the SRIS/SIgN, Singapore, and a visiting consultant at the National Skin Centre, Singapore.

He graduated from Kyoto University in 1996 and was trained in Medicine/Dermatology at the United States Naval Hospital in Yokosuka Japan, Kyoto University Hospital, and University of Washington Medical Center. He started research on bioactive lipid mediators at Kyoto University, which led to a PhD (under Prof. Shuh Narumiya). Then he studied at the Department of Dermatology, Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine (Prof. Yoshiki Miyachi), UCSF (Prof. Jason Cyster), and University of Occupational and Environmental Health (Prof. Yoshiki Tokura).

Dr. Kabashima has dedicated efforts through his carrier in treating atopic dermatitis (AD) patients and researching on the pathogenesis of AD in mice and humans for the past 20 years as a committee member of the guidelines on AD domestically and internationally. He proposed the pathogenesis of AD: interplay among the barrier, allergy, and pruritus as a trinity, which is the novel concept that AD develops as result of interplay among multiple physiological systems. Since then, he has been interested in the interplay among different physiological systems, including immunity, nervous system, barrier, and environmental factors. Among these factors, he is most interested in the skin barrier functions, which seem to be the initiator and key player of allergic diseases.

Brett King is associate professor of dermatology at Yale University School of Medicine, specializing in inflammatory skin diseases and hair loss disorders. He pioneered the use of Janus kinase (JAK) inhibitors in dermatology, and his work has revealed the broad utility of JAK inhibitors for the treatment of alopecia areata, vitiligo, atopic dermatitis, granulomatous diseases, as well as other conditions. Dr King is an investigator in numerous clinical trials, lectures nationally and internationally, and publishes extensively. In 2022, Dr King received the Patient Care Hero award from the American Academy of Dermatology.

Dr King received his B.A. at the University of California at Santa Cruz, his Ph.D. from Stanford University and his M.D. from Yale University School of Medicine. He completed medical internship at Massachusetts General Hospital and dermatology residency at Yale University School of Medicine.

Iain McInnes is Head of College of Medical Veterinary and Life Sciences, and Vice Principal, University of Glasgow, and serves also as the Muirhead Professor of Medicine and Versus Arthritis Professor of Rheumatology in the University.

He is Director of the Versus Arthritis Centre of Excellence for Inflammatory Arthritis, lead from the University of Glasgow that includes Universities of Oxford, Newcastle and Birmingham. He serves as a member of the Greater Glasgow and Clyde Health Board. He is a Trustee on the Board of Versus Arthritis. He is past chairman of the Foreum (Foundation for European Rheumatology Research) Scientific Committee, lead the European Roadmap programme that is defining the research agenda for European rheumatology for the next decade and is Past-President of the European Alliance of Rheumatology Associations (EULAR). Under these auspices he led the creation of the first pan-European Rheumatology Research Centre launched in 2021.

His work is mainly focused upon the understanding of the pathogenesis of immune mediated inflammatory diseases and encompasses basic discovery immunology through phase 1 and proof of concept experimental medicine clinical trials to leadership of pivotal phase 3 trials in the area of immune biology. His laboratory group performed original discovery work supporting the therapeutic targeting of a several inflammatory cytokines.

More recently he has focused on the biology of myeloid cells in the pathogenesis of a number of immune diseases. He has served on a number of scientific advisory groups adjacent to the pharmaceutical industry, mainly in the area of development of novel immune modifying agents. He has published >550 peer-reviewed original and review articles with an h-index of >130 equating to around 100,000 citations. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences. He was made Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2019 by HM Queen Elizabeth II.

Professor Tim Orchard is Chief Executive of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, a trust consisting of five hospitals including three major teaching hospitals. The trust has 15 000 staff and a turnover of £1.6 billion, and provides acute, specialist and community services in North West London. He is also a Consultant Gastroenterologist and Professor of Gastroenterology at Imperial College London. He has had significant leadership and management roles including running the Division of Medicine and Integrated Care, and acting as Medical Director at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. He has overseen a number of transformational projects in the trust and is working with colleagues across London to plan effective services for the needs of the future population.

He qualified from the University of Cambridge and London University before undertaking training in internal medicine and gastroenterology. He undertook research at the University of Oxford with Professor Derek Jewell, and has continued his research interests in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and extra-intestinal manifestations (EIMs). More recently he has been working with colleagues to examine the role of metabonomics in relation to IBD and the microbes in the gut, and has developed an interest in IBD in the large South Asian population in West London. He has published papers on phenotype determining genes and EIMs in IBD, urinary metabonomics and other aspects of IBD and written a number of book chapters. He has also been involved in a number of clinical trials of novel drug therapies in IBD in their population of secondary and tertiary IBD patients. He has contributed to international guidelines on IBD and on EIMs associated with IBD; and to NICE guidelines on spondyloarthritis in the UK.

Professor Orchard has previously been the Emanoel Lee Junior Research Fellow at St Cross College, University of Oxford, the Sidney Truelove Lecturer at the University of Oxford, the Archibald Clark Kennedy Lecturer at Corpus Christi College Cambridge, and has delivered a keynote address at the London Business School. He has been Chair of the British Society of Gastroenterology IBD Section, and a national representative to the European Crohn’s and Colitis Organisation, as well as chairing the BSG IBD Clinical Studies Group. He also has a particular interest in education and training, and was previously Director of Clinical Studies at St Mary’s Hospital, London, still regularly teaching clinical medical students, and was previously joint training programme director for gastroenterology in North West Thames.

Professor Silvio Danese is a Gastroenterologist and Professor of Gastroenterology at Vita-Salute San Raffaele University and IRCCS San Raffaele Hospital, Milan, Italy, since October 2021, where he is the Head of Gastroenterology and Gastrointestinal Endoscopy Unit.

Before that, Professor Danese was Head of IBD Centre and ImmunoCentre at IRCCS Humanitas, Rozzano, Milan, Italy, and Professor of Gastroenterology at Humanitas University. Silvio Danese was trained in Gastroenterology at Policlinico Gemelli, Rome and at the same time graduated with a PhD in Physiopathology of Metabolism, focusing specifically on basic and applied research concerning IBD.

His main research area of interest is the investigation of the fundamental mechanisms underlying IBD pathogenesis, while his daily clinical activity is related to IBD service. He is actively involved in many international clinical trials in IBD and has published more than 700 papers in several journals, including New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, Gastroenterology, Gut, and Journal of Clinical Investigation.

He is a member of many organizations related to the IBD field, including the European Crohn's and Colitis Organization (ECCO), where he is a Past President (2018 – 2020).

Dr David T. Rubin is the Joseph B. Kirsner Professor of Medicine and a Professor of Pathology, Chief of the Section of Gastroenterology, Hepatology & Nutrition and the Co-Director of the Digestive Diseases Centre at The University of Chicago Medicine. He also currently serves as an Associate faculty member at the MacLean Centre for Clinical Medical Ethics, an Associate Investigator at the University of Chicago Comprehensive Cancer Centre and is a member of the University of Chicago Committee on Clinical Pharmacology and Pharmacogenomics. He is the former Chair of the National Scientific Advisory Committee of the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation, where he also serves as a Board of Trustees member. He is the deputy chair of the Executive Committee of the International Organization for the Study of Inflammatory Bowel Disease.

Dr Rubin is a Fellow of the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA), the American College of Gastroenterology (ACG), the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE), the American College of Physicians (ACP), and the Royal College of Physicians (Edinburgh). He is on the Board of Trustees for the ACG.

Among numerous awards and honours, Dr Rubin was chosen by his peers as a member of Best Doctors (recognized for superior clinical ability) and America’s Top Physicians (gastroenterology). Additionally, he twice received the ACG’s Governor’s Award of Excellence in Clinical Research (2003 and 2013), and the UChicago Postgraduate Teaching Award in recognition of significant contributions for fellowship education (2006). In 2012, he received the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation’s Rosenthal Award, a national leadership award bestowed upon a volunteer who has contributed in an indisputable way to the quality of life of patients and families. He is an Associate Editor of the journal Gastroenterology and Editor-in-Chief of the ACG On-Line Education Universe. In 2020, Dr Rubin received the Sherman Prize for Excellence in Crohn’s and Colitis.

Dr Rubin is an editor of a best-selling book Curbside Consultation in IBD which is now in its 3rd edition, was an Associate Editor of the 11th edition and is senior editor of the upcoming 12th edition of Sleisenger and Fordtran’s Gastrointestinal and Liver Disease, and an author or coauthor of over 500 articles on treatment and management of IBD, cancer in IBD and novel paradigms, as well as the first author of the 2019 ACG Guidelines for ulcerative colitis. His current research is in the area of novel approaches to monitoring of IBD (wearables and point of care intestinal ultrasound), prevention of progressive complications from uncontrolled inflammation, and a variety of collaborative and translational studies related to the causes of IBD and its complications.

Ailsa Hart is a Consultant Gastroenterologist, and Director of St Mark’s Hospital Inflammatory Bowel Disease Research. She is among the youngest individuals to achieve academic promotion to Professor of Practice in 2016 with Imperial College. She is also an honorary Skou Professor (in honour of the Nobel Laureate, Professor Jens Skou, to recognise internationally esteemed researchers) for the University of Aarhus in Denmark. She is currently a member of the International Organisation for the study of Inflammatory Bowel Disease, on the research committee for the Crohn’s and Colitis UK charity and UK Patient and Public Involvement lead for gastroenterology. She is also on the editorial board of European Crohn’s and Colitis organisation (ECCO) as a Scientific officer, where she has contributed for >10 years.

Her clinical work covers the spectrum of gastrointestinal diseases, with a particular interest in inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), Crohn’s disease, and ulcerative colitis, writing over 300 papers and 2 books. She interdigitates a busy clinical practice with research, both clinical trials in IBD and translational research. Her research interests focus on intestinal immunology and bacteriology, aiming to further our understanding of the pathogenesis of inflammatory intestinal disorders via clinical trials and translational research.

She has contributed to national (British Society of Gastroenterology) and international societies (European Crohn’s and Colitis Organisation for over 10 years, serving on its Governing Board for 6 years; United European Gastroenterology Faculty; and the International Organisation of IBD) throughout her consultant career.

Dr. Jessica R. Allegretti is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and in addition currently serves as the Medical Director of the Crohn’s and Colitis Center at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where she built and leads the Clinical Trials Program and Fecal Microbiota Transplant Program. She graduated from The Miller School of Medicine at the University of Miami, Florida, trained in internal medicine at Massachusetts’s General Hospital and completed her gastroenterology fellowship training at Brigham and Women’s Hospital before joining faculty there. She later went on to receive a Master of Public Health degree from the Harvard School of Public Health.

She is a physician-scientist dedicated to discovering and developing innovative microbiome therapeutics and novel treatments for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Her research focus is on the mechanism of recurrent C.difficile infection (CDI) and the intersection of CDI and IBD. She has authored >100 peer-reviewed publications. She has received funding from the NIH, the American College of Gastroenterology and the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation. Dr. Allegretti has been featured on HBO, BBC, Netflix, and in the New York Times and numerous other media outlets. Dr. Allegretti has also received the Sherman Emerging Leader Prize for Excellence in Crohn’s and Colitis.

Professor Hyrich completed her Bachelor of Science and Medical degree at the University of Manitoba in Canada. Following this, she trained in Internal Medicine in Winnipeg, Canada and completed a Fellowship in Rheumatology at the University of Toronto. She was awarded her PhD in 2005 subsequently working as a CIHR Research Fellow at the Arthritis Research UK Epidemiology Unit in Manchester. She is now Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Manchester and an Honorary Rheumatology Consultant at the Manchester Royal Infirmary.

Her main research interests centre on outcomes in inflammatory arthritis, with a focus on pharmacoepidemiology. Professor Hyrich is a member of the EULAR registries group and the chief investigator for the British Society for Rheumatology Biologics Register for Rheumatoid Arthritis as well as two national biologic registers for Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis; the Versus Arthritis funded Safety of Biologics in Children with Rheumatic Diseases and the BSPAR Etanercept JIA Register. Professor Hyrich was instrumental in the collaboration of the global COVID-19 registers for patients with rheumatic disease.

Robert Landewé is a professor of rheumatology at the Academic Medical Center / University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and is chair of the department of rheumatology at Zuyderland Medical Center Heerlen, The Netherlands.

Professor Landewé received his medical degree from Maastricht University in 1990 and defended his thesis on cyclosporine therapy in rheumatoid arthritis in 1994 in Leiden.

He received practical training in general internal medicine and rheumatology at Atrium Medical Center, Heerlen and in rheumatology at the University Hospital, Maastricht. He practices rheumatology in the Zuyderland Medical Center in Heerlen/Sittard, The Netherlands.

Currently, Professor Landewé is involved in outcome research and epidemiological research in the field of rheumatoid arthritis, spondyloarthritis and other rheumatic & musculoskeletal manifestations. He has extensive experience in the design and analysis of clinical trials and has a special interest in medical statistics. Professor Landewé has authored or co-authored more than 600 articles and many book chapters covering a variety of topics, but with an emphasis on clinical epidemiology, methodology, statistics, and guideline development (‘meta-research’). Recently he has developed an interest in -and published about- worldwide equity-issues pertaining to rheumatic diseases, as well as overdiagnosis and overtreatment.

He has led many EULAR recommendation initiatives on the management of systemic sclerosis, early arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, axial spondyloarthritis, and recently on the management of SARS-CoV-2 in patients with inflammatory rheumatic diseases.

He is a regular reviewer for several general medicine-, rheumatology- and epidemiology journals.

Professor Landewé is a previous executive committee member of OMERACT, is board member and past president of the Assessment in Spondyloarthritis International Society (ASAS), previous executive board member of the Dutch Society of Rheumatology (responsible for quality of care issues), executive board member of the METEOR foundation (monitoring in rheumatology) and incoming chair of the Quality of Care committee of EULAR. He was the scientific chair of EULAR 2018 in Amsterdam.

Professor Christopher Edwards is Consultant Rheumatologist and Honorary Chair of Clinical Rheumatology, University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust within Medicine at the University of Southampton. He graduated with honors from King's College London and trained at the Hammersmith and St George's Hospitals in London. He was a registrar for Professor Graham Hughes at the St Thomas' Hospital lupus unit and then undertook a period of research as a lecturer at the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology at Imperial College under the supervision of Professor Ravinder Maini. He moved to Southampton in 2001 after working for a year as a rheumatology consultant at Tan Tock Seng Hospital in Singapore.
Professor Edwards is a clinical rheumatologist with research interests and expertise in the epidemiology and treatment of inflammatory rheumatic diseases including rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, psoriatic arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis.

He is a member of international committees working to produce guidelines for the best management of rheumatic diseases, leading a systematic review of guidelines for the use of radiology in the diagnosis and management of rheumatoid arthritis for EULAR. With expertise in the planning and delivery of trials in this area, including early stage trials, Professor Edwards has developed strong local and international partnerships with clinical and academic colleagues, centered on his role as clinical lead of the Southampton Musculoskeletal Research Unit. Professor Edwards also serves as Associate Editor for Rheumatology, and on the editorial board of Lupus.

Professor Peter Taylor studied pre-clinical medical sciences at Gonville and Caius College at the University of Cambridge, where he earned his first degree in Physiology. He subsequently studied clinical medicine at the University of Oxford and was awarded a PhD degree from the University of London for studies on the pathogenesis of arthritis. In October 2011, Professor Taylor was appointed Norman Collisson Chair of Musculoskeletal Sciences at the University of Oxford, and is a Fellow of St. Peter's College, Oxford. He is the Head of Clinical Sciences at the Botnar Research Centre within the Nuffield Department of Orthopaedics, Rheumatology and Musculoskeletal Sciences.

He has specialist clinical interests in novel therapies, rheumatoid and early arthritis. His research expertise is in mechanisms sustaining inflammation and clinical trials of new therapies with development of novel outcome measurements for application in assessment of response to therapy.

Professor John Isaacs is the Director of Therapeutics North East at Newcastle University, and Professor of Clinical Rheumatology. He is also an Honorary Consultant Rheumatologist with the Newcastle-upon-Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. He is the Scientific Chair-elect for the European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR). Professor Isaacs’ research interests include immunotherapy of rheumatic, autoimmune disease, therapeutic tolerance induction, pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis and genetics and pharmacogenetics of rheumatoid arthritis. His translational research is considered internationally renowned.

Prof Emery trained at Cambridge, Guy’s and Brompton. After completing his accreditation in Rheumatology and GIM. He was Head of Rheumatology at Walter & Eliza Hall Institute and Consultant at the Royal Melbourne Hospital in 1985. He returned to the University of Birmingham as a Senior Lecturer in 1987. Since 1995 he has been Versus Arthritis UK (formerly ARC) Professor of Rheumatology in Leeds, and inaugural Director of the Leeds NIHR Biomedical Research Centre 2009-present. Leeds under his direction is one of the worlds’ largest and most highly rated centres. Since 2009, he has been Director of the Leeds NIHR Biomedical Research Centre.

Prof Emery was President of EULAR 2009-2011. He was inaugural chair of FOREUM Executive. He is an ACR Master. He has served on the editorial boards of all the major rheumatology journals. He was inaugural President of ISEMIR (International extremity MRI society). He has been an NIHR Senior Investigator since 2008. He is a recipient of the Roche Biennial Award for Clinical Rheumatology; the Rheumatology Hospital Doctor of the Year award 1999; and EULAR prize 2002 for outstanding contribution to rheumatology research. In 2012 he was awarded the Carol Nachman Prize. In 2018 he was awarded an OBE by the Queen and in 2020 received the Meritorious Service Award from EULAR.

Professor Emery’s research interests centre around the immunopathogenesis and immunotherapy of rheumatoid arthritis, SpA, psoriatic disease and connective tissue diseases. He has a special interest in the factors leading to persistent inflammation. He was instrumental in bringing sensitive imaging (MRI/US) into rheumatology practice. He established the concept of early intervention in inflammatory arthritis, with a model for early arthritis now adopted. He is currently focusing on the prevention of autoimmune diseases with national programmes identifying patients in the pre-clinical phase. This prevention strategy is applied not only to inflammatory arthritis but to systemic lupus erythematosus, Sjogren’s syndrome, scleroderma, and psoriatic disease. He has published >1200 peer-reviewed articles in this area and has an h index of >140.

Bernard Combe is Professor of Rheumatology at Montpellier University, France, and Head of the Bone and Joint Department at Montpellier University Hospital.

He completed his medical education at Montpellier University and was subsequently awarded a research fellowship in clinical immunology at the University of Texas, San Antonio, USA.

Professor Combe was elected member of the National Board of Universities (Rheumatology) from 1994–2000 and again from 2006, as well as being president from 2010–2013. He is an active member of numerous EULAR and ACR task forces. Professor Combe is Editor-in-Chief of RMD Open and of La Lettre du Rhumatologue. In addition, he is a member of the editorial boards of Annals of Rheumatic Diseases, Arthritis and Rheumatism and Joint Bone Spine. He has co-authored more than 315 articles published in international peer-reviewed journals and has been a coordinator or main investigator in 131 clinical trials.

Professor Thomas Dörner is a Professor of Rheumatology at Charité University Hospitals, Berlin, and group leader at the German Research Centre of Rheumatology, Berlin (DRFZ).

He qualified in medicine in 1990 at Charité University Hospitals, Berlin, and received his board certification in internal medicine in 1995. He undertook a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Texas, Southwestern Medical Centre at Dallas, where he researched delineating molecular aspects of the B-cell receptor gene usage in autoimmune diseases.

Professor Dörner has led various clinical trials of rheumatic diseases, including systemic lupus erythematosus, Sjögren’s syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis and seronegative spondyloarthropathies. His research interests focus on the characterisation of disturbances of humoral autoimmunity and abnormalities of B cell subsets in the blood versus tissue. He also explores innovative therapeutic approaches with particular focus on B-cell directed therapy as well as improving diagnostic tools in autoimmune diseases.

Professor Dörner has served as a member of Editorial Boards of leading journals in rheumatology and immunology, including Arthritis & Rheumatism, Arthritis Research & Therapy, Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases. He has received a number of awards including the Senior Scholar Award of the American College of Rheumatology, the H Schultze Award of the German League Against Rheumatism, Randy Fischer Prize for Excellence in flow cytometry and the Schoen Award of the German Society of Rheumatology.

Professor Stanley Cohen completed a degree in biology from the University of Virginia and received his Doctor of Medicine with honours, from the University of Alabama School of Medicine in Birmingham. He completed an internship and residency in Internal Medicine at Parkland Memorial Hospital, Dallas, Texas, and a fellowship in Rheumatology at UT Southwestern/St. Paul University Hospital.

In 1994, Cohen was awarded the Medical Professional Award from the Arthritis Foundation, North Texas Chapter, of which he is also a lifetime board member. He is a past president of the American College of Rheumatology and was honoured in 2016 with the designation of Master by the American College of Rheumatology. He has co authored more than 400 medical publications, including the New England Journal of Medicine, Arthritis and Rheumatism, and Archives of Internal Medicine.

Carl June is the Richard W. Vague Professor in Immunotherapy in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine. He is currently Director of the Center for Cellular Immunotherapies at the Perelman School of Medicine, and Director of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a graduate of the Naval Academy in Annapolis, and Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, 1979. He had graduate training in immunology and malaria with Dr Paul-Henri Lambert at the World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland from 1978-79, and post-doctoral training in transplantation biology with E. Donnell Thomas and John Hansen at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle from 1983 - 1986.

He is board certified in Internal Medicine and Medical Oncology. He maintains a research laboratory that studies various mechanisms of lymphocyte activation that relate to immune tolerance and adoptive immunotherapy for cancer and chronic infection. In 2011, his research team published findings detailing a new therapy in which patients with refractory and relapsed chronic lymphocytic leukemia were treated with genetically engineered versions of their own T cells. The treatment has also now also been used with promising results to treat children with refractory acute lymphoblastic leukemia. He has published more than 350 manuscripts and is the recipient of numerous prizes and honors, including election to the Institute of Medicine in 2012 and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2014, the William B Coley award, the Richard V Smalley Memorial Award from the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer, the AACR-CRI Lloyd J. Old Award in Cancer Immunology, the Philadelphia Award in 2012, the Taubman Prize for Excellence in Translational Medical Science in 2014 (shared w S. Grupp, B. Levine, D. Porter), the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize (shared w J. Allison), the Novartis Prize in Immunology (shared w Z. Eshaar and S. Rosenberg), the Karl Landsteiner Memorial award, the Debrecen Award and a lifetime achievement award from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

As Vice President Research, Professor Schett is mainly responsible for FAU’s research strategy, research infrastructure, research funding (including internal research funding and prestigious academic awards in a broader sense), issues relating to collaborative projects and international aspects of research.

Prof Schett has published more than 760 articles in peer-reviewed journals and, as an expert in his field, he has been invited to more than 660 congresses and conferences. His h-index is 122. He has won a large number of prizes and awards, most recently the Dr Franciscus Blondel Medal of the city of Aachen for outstanding contributions to the field of rheumatology in 2019. He was previously and is currently involved as principal investigator or speaker in eight third-party funded projects including Collaborative Research Centre 1181 (Checkpoints for Resolution of Inflammation) since 2015, the ERC Synergy Grant (4D+ NanoSCOPE), which started in 2018, and the BMBF funding project ‘MASCARA’ (Molecular Assessment of Signatures Characterizing the Remission of Arthritis), which began in 2020.

Prof. Schett’s scientific expertise is in demand all over the world. In 2009, he was a visiting professor at UCSD (San Diego, CA, USA), in 2012 at the University of Xian and University of Guangzhou (China), in 2014 at the Hospital of Special Surgery (NYC, USA) and at NYU (NYC, USA) in 2018. He is a member of the DFG review board, a reviewer for several academic societies and journals and has collaborated on organising a large number of international congresses. Since his appointment at FAU, he has maintained close links with an ever growing number of national and international collaborations on joint projects with institutions such as the VIB in Ghent, Belgium, the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden and the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology in Oxford, UK.

Richard Furie is Chief of the Division of Rheumatology at the Department of Medicine, Northwell Health, New York, and Professor of Medicine at the Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell where he is also working within the Department of Molecular Medicine. He is Director of the SLE and Autoimmune Disease Treatment Centre, and of Northwell Health System’s clinical research program in musculoskeletal disease, The Program in Novel Therapeutics. He has served on many committees of the American College of Rheumatology, including the Board of Directors.

Professor Furie trained at Cornell University Medical College. He completed his internship and residency at The New York Hospital, after which he became a Fellow in Rheumatic Diseases at the Hospital for Special Surgery. He was then certified by the American Boards of Internal Medicine and Rheumatology.

His research interests include systemic lupus erythematosus and related diseases, and he has been the primary investigator on approximately 100 trials. He presently sits as Co-Chair of the Clinical Trial Design Subcommittee of the Lupus Clinical Investigators Network as well as Co-Chair of the Lupus Industry Council of the Lupus Research Alliance. He has received several awards and honours throughout his career, including an award for Top Doctors: NY Metro Area (1997 and 1999) and the Department of Medicine Research Award (2020). He was also named Arthritis Foundation Walk Honoree in 2014.