Letter from the Editor

Dear Reader,

The 20^th EULAR Congress was held in Northern Madrid in Spain between the 12-15 June at the Feria de Madrid Congress centre. The Congress venue is very close to the Wanda Metropolitano Stadium where less than two weeks earlier the eyes of the World were focused on the biggest game in club football, played out by a host of international stars from around the globe representing two English teams. Likewise, the EULAR event was a real feast in state of the art Rheumatology that was also well attended by delegates from around the world. Over 15,000 delegates made the trip for an excellent daytime programme against the backdrop of Madrid with its excellent restaurants and events that had the delegates packing the city centre in the evenings.

At the sports event, football royalty won out with Liverpool retaining the trophy for a 6^th time. The translational therapeutics that Rheumatology has spearheaded for over two decades has likewise placed our speciality into royalty status and this shows no signs of waning. The speciality should take great satisfaction at being at the forefront of the therapeutics of inflammation that has transformed disease management beyond Rheumatology.

It gives my editorial team and I great pleasure to summarise some of developments reported at the meeting. The selected abstracts only cover a small fraction of the excellent work presented but we feel that these consolidate clinical knowledge and represent developments just around the corner from the clinic.

Sincerely,
Prof. Dennis McGonagle

Biography

Dennis McGonagle, FRCPI, PhD, is an Academic Rheumatologist at the University of Leeds and section head of Experimental Rheumatology. He graduated in Medicine from the University College Dublin in 1990 and undertook postgraduate training in Dublin and Leeds where he completed his PhD. He has developed the modern enthesitis model for spondyloarthropathies and psoriatic arthritis including the cytokine mediated enthesis originating theory of disease (Lancet 1998). He also described the synovio-entheseal complex, nail anchorage to the skeleton, developed an integrated biomechanical and immunology model for PsA, and a mechanistic disease classification of immune diseases (PLoS Med 2006). His group also discovered synovial fluid mesenchymal stem cells, which is being researched towards osteoarthritis therapy development. Prof. McGonagle has also served on the EULAR scientific committee and is a member of the Editorial Board of ARD.

Conflict of Interest Statement:Prof. McGonagle has undertaken research and/or educational programme activities with Pfizer, MSD, AbbVie, BMS, UCB, Novartis, Celgene, Eli Lilly and J&J.



Posted on 4 September 201917 March 2021