Editorial introductions

Abstract

Current Opinion in Rheumatology was launched in 1989. It is one of a successful series of review journals whose unique format is designed to provide a systematic and critical assessment of the literature as presented in the many primary journals. The field of Rheumatology is divided into 15 sections that are reviewed once a year. Each section is assigned a Section Editor, a leading authority in the area, who identifies the most important topics at that time. Here we are pleased to introduce the Journal's Section Editors for this issue. SECTION EDITORS Kenneth G. SaagKenneth G. SaagKenneth G. Saag, MD, MSc, is Jane Knight Lowe Professor of Medicine, Division of Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology, at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) in Birmingham, Alabama, USA and Professor of Epidemiology, at the UAB School of Public Health. Dr Saag is a native of Chicago, and following studies in engineering at the University of Michigan, USA, he returned to Chicago for medical school and Internal Medicine Residency at Northwestern University, USA. He then traveled to the University of Iowa, USA, for his rheumatology and epidemiology training and remained on the faculty there until moving to UAB in 1998. Dr Saag is the founding Director of the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality Deep South Center for Education and Research on Therapeutics, the UAB Center of Research Translation in Gout and Hyperuricemia, and the UAB Outcomes Research Center. He also serves as a Vice Chair for the UAB Department of Medicine. He has published over 300 peer reviewed manuscripts; has also authored more than 100 reviews, editorials, and book chapters. Recently he published the first edition of the clinical handbook Diagnosis and Management of Osteoporosis. Dr Saag is the Secretary of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) and Past President of the Board of Trustees of the National Osteoporosis Foundation. Sara K. TedeschiSara K. TedeschiDr Tedeschi is a Rheumatologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, both in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. She completed medical school at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, Tennessee, USA. Dr Tedeschi then completed both her internal medicine residency and rheumatology fellowship training at Brigham and Women's Hospital and received her MPH from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Her clinical research focuses on risk factors for and outcomes in rheumatic diseases. Dr Tedeschi's current work which focuses on calcium pyrophosphate crystal deposition disease is funded by the National Institutes of Health. She is Co-Chair of the OMERACT CPPD Working Group and serves on the leadership team of the ACR/EULAR CPPD Classification Criteria working group. George C. TsokosGeorge C. TsokosDr George C. Tsokos, MD is Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Chief, Rheumatology Division, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, USA. He trained in Rheumatology at the National Institutes of Health, USA. He has served various leadership positions including President of the Clinical Immunology Society, Chair of the Council of the University of Athens and Member or Chair of multiple federal study sections and Editor or Member of editorial boards of scientific journals. Dr Tsokos holds a MERIT Award from the National Institutes of Health and has received several prestigious awards including the Kirkland, Howley, Evelyn Hess awards and the Distinguished Basic Investigator Award from the American College of Rheumatology, the Lupus Insight Award, the Carol Nachman International Prize in Rheumatology and the Marian Ropes Physician Achievement Award. Dr Tsokos’ laboratory has opened and led the field of molecular abnormalities on immune cells in patients with SLE and identified previously unknown pathways which have served as the basis for novel treatments which are currently in various phases of development.