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.

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.

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.

Gil Y Melmed, MD, MS, is the Co-Director of the Inflammatory Bowel Disease Center at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, CA, USA. He earned his medical degree from Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, New York, and master of science in clinical research from the University of California, School of Medicine (UCLA), Los Angeles. He completed his gastroenterology fellowship at UCLA also.

Dr Melmed has authored or co-authored more than 150 articles in peer-reviewed journals and several book chapters. Dr Melmed has served as Associate Editor of the American Journal of Gastroenterology, and clinical research editor for Inflammatory Bowel Disease. His interests include clinical outcomes and quality of care in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), as well as translational prognostic and therapeutic strategies to improve inflammation and clinical outcomes. He has led or participated in the development of quality indicators for IBD with the American Gastroenterology Association, the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation, the National Quality Forum, and the Canadian Crohn’s and Colitis organizations.