Peter C Taylor holds the Norman Collison chair of musculoskeletal sciences at the University of Oxford and is a Fellow of St. Peter’s College. He is Head of Clinical Sciences at the Botnar Research Centre within the Nuffield Department of Orthopaedics, Rheumatology and Musculoskeletal Sciences. He studied pre-clinical medical sciences at Gonville and Caius College at the University of Cambridge and his first degree was in Physiology. He subsequently studied clinical medicine at the University of Oxford and was awarded a PhD degree from the University of London for research on pathogenesis of arthritis. Professor Taylor has specialist clinical interests in inflammatory arthritis. He has over 25 years’ experience in clinical trial design in studies of biologic and small molecular therapies in rheumatoid arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis. In experimental medicine studies, Professor Taylor employs targeted therapies as probes of pathogenesis to investigate the in vivo biology of the target in the pathobiology of the disease phenotype under investigation.

Elena Nikiphorou, MBBS/BSc, FRCP, MD(Res), PGCME, FHEA Dr Elena Nikiphorou is a Consultant Rheumatologist and an Honorary Senior Lecturer at Kings College London. She completed her MBBS at University College London, also obtaining a first-class honours for her Intercalated BSc in physiology, a British Pharmacological Society Award and a Wellcome Trust Vacation Scholarship for her BSc Research. She has been the recipient of multiple awards, bursaries and competitive roles, including the Richard Kovacs prize by the Royal Society of Medicine in 2014, which supported a fellowship in Chicago and the Doris Hillier Award by the British Medical Association in 2018, to support her work on multimorbidity in rheumatoid arthritis and the development of management algorithms according to individual need. with a clinical/academic interest in inflammatory arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis and spondyloarthritis. She has expertise in all aspects of general rheumatology, including connective tissue and metabolic bone disease; crystal (e.g., gout) and reactive arthritis.

Jérôme Avouac is a senior rheumatologist at Cochin Hospital and Professor at the University of Paris. He is responsible for a sector of day hospitalisation in the Rheumatology department, whose recruitment is mainly composed of patients with chronic inflammatory rheumatic disorders. He established a standardized systematic follow-up of joint involvement and systemic complications of rheumatoid arthritis and other inflammatory rheumatic diseases. Based on this standardized follow-up and clinical studies, he is developing medical approaches of personalized medicine for rheumatoid arthritis. Within the “Pathogenesis And Innovative Therapies In Chronic Fibro-Inflammatory Diseases” team at the Cochin Institute (INSERM U1016 UMR8104), Prof. Avouac leads innovative projects regarding the vascular aspects of inflammatory rheumatic disorders, especially rheumatoid arthritis. He also participates in the preclinical evaluation of anti-fibrotic treatments thanks to a platform of complementary animal models with dermal, pulmonary and vascular fibrosis.

Dr Richard Furie is a rheumatologist whose activities for the last several decades have focused on patient care, physician education, and clinical research in the area of anti-rheumatic drug development. He directs The Program in Novel Therapeutics, the Health System’s clinical research program in musculoskeletal disease. He also directs the Hospital’s systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and Autoimmune Disease Treatment Center, which has become internationally recognized for its role in the development of new therapies for SLE. Regarded as one of the senior rheumatologists in the New York metropolitan area, he has served as a volunteer for the local chapters of the Arthritis Foundation and the Lupus Alliance, the Lupus Foundation of America, the SLE Foundation, the Lupus Research Alliance, and Lupus Therapeutics. He has served on many committees of the American College of Rheumatology and was named a Master of the College in 2018.

Alessia was involved in several EULAR taskforces for the elaboration of recommendations including those for the management of SLE, she is a faculty member of the EULAR School of Rheumatology and a member of the EULAR Public Affairs Group. Alessia authored more than 120 peer-reviewed publications (h index 31).

Alessia became the Chair of EMEUNET in 2018 and took on a number of responsibilities and organizational tasks. Her role was crucial in starting collaborations between EMEUNET and the young rheumatologists groups of PANLAR and APLAR. Alessia also strengthened the relationship between EMEUNET and PARE/Young PARE by expanding the number of joint activities and projects.

McLain is executive director of Alabama Society for the Rheumatic Diseases and symposium director of the Congress of Clinical Rheumatology.