First of all, the ECTS Newsletter team wishes you a wonderful, scientifically and clinically inspiring 2020. As you have read in the December 2019 issue, two esteemed members of the team who were there right from the beginning, have said farewell. Now, from my side, it is a great pleasure to write a great THANK YOU for Carmen Huesa and Marco Ponzetti. First of all, Carmen, thank you for your continuous involvement, and for your articles on topics that matter! Women in science, Career perspective of post-docs are a few I remember. Secondly, Marco, thank you for your contributions, not only on stressed-out PhD students, but, importantly, on composing the newsletter E V E R Y month! That is a great accomplishment that should not be forgotten.
I am happy to announce that we have found two keen and eager new team members who will try to fill the vacuum left by Carmen and Marco. Below, Antonio Maurizi and Petar Milovanovic will introduce themselves. For 2020, the ECTS NL will continue to cover the relevant topics that should be in it: the news around ECTS and its annual congress, new developments within the bone field, new societal aspects that are relevant for a vivid scientific society such as ours, news the world and of course the portraits of the national bone and mineral societies. There are many countries within Europe to be exposed, this year starts off with Germany in this issue. As a newsletter team, we are privileged to be advised by Roberta Mugnai from the ECTS staff as well as from Anna Teti from the Board of the ECTS. We cannot do without them. We hope to provide you, readers, with the news you are interested in and that you would like to read in an ECTS Newsletter. Feel free, of course, to suggest to me, at teun.devries@acta.nl any omission that you would like to be covered.
Antonio Maurizi is a post-doc in bone biopathology at University of L’Aquila, where he got his PhD in Medical Biotechnology in 2019. During his training we was visiting student in the laboratories of Prof. Stavroula Kousteni and Gerard Karsenty at the Columbia University (NY), Prof. Michael Briggs at the University of Newcastle Centre for Life (Newcastle, UK), Prof. Shireen Lamande and John Bateman at Y Centre for Life the University of Melbourne Murdoch Children Research Institute (Melbourne, Australia) and Prof. Uwe Kornak at the Charité University (Berlin, Germany). Antonio research is focused on the characterization and treatment of a rare genetic bone diseases, such as the Autosomal Dominant Osteopetrosis Type 2 (ADO2). Recently, he has started to work also on the mechanisms underlying breast cancer cell dormancy of in the bone microenvironment. Antonio has been a member of ECTS since 2015.
Petar Milovanovic obtained his MD degree at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Belgrade (FMUB) as the best graduate in 2009. He defended the PhD thesis in 2014 at University of Belgrade with Summa cum laude. His doctoral dissertation focused on nanostructural and microarchitectural signs of bone fragility in postmenopausal women. He received numerous awards for academic achievements, including the Best young scientist award at the Faculty of Medicine (2016) and New investigator award at ECTS 2017. In 2018 he was elected for ECTS Academy where he is actively involved in international promotion of bone research. He has a strong orientation towards international cooperation and he received international fellowships (such as DAAD and Alexander von Humbolt fellowships). He is an Associate Professor in Anatomy and a lecturer in the topics of Skeletal Biology in Laboratory for Anthropology and Bone Biology, FMUB. His research is largely based on interdisciplinary work, and he emphasizes communication with scientists from various disciplines (from life sciences to clinical sciences). His expertise encompasses human anatomy and anthropology, bone aging, bone quality, bone imaging in both research and clinical settings.