Board of Directors

Bo Abrahamsen is an endocrinologist at Holbæk Hospital in Denmark and primarily treats patients with osteoporosis, metabolic bone diseases and parathyroid disorders. He is also a professor of clinical database studies at the University of Southern Denmark. He attended Medical School in Odense, Denmark, the B.Sc. Hons Course in Experimental Pathology at St. Andrews, UK, and part of his PhD lab work at UMASS Medical Center, Worcester, MA. Main research interests include absolute fracture risk, secondary osteoporosis, fracture epidemiology and safety of anti-osteoporotic drugs and supplements. He served on both ASBMR Task Forces on Atypical Femur Fractures. Dr Abrahamsen is the clinical co-chair for the ECTS 2019 annual meeting SPC and Deputy Editor of JBMR plus. He is a former member of the Board of Directors of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research and Associate Editor of the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research.

Education/ Current position: PhD, Biological Science, 1977; Professor of Histology, University of L’Aquila, Italy.
Training: University of Berne (CH), 1982; Oxford University (UK), 1984; Washington University at St. Louis, MO (USA), 1986; 1987.
Honours and Awards: Chemofux Prize, 1991; Prix André Lichtwitz, 1993; Swiss Bridge Award, 2008; ECTS Mike Horton Award, 2013.
Editorial Duties/ Peer Review Panels:  Editorial Boards: Bone; Calcif Tissue Int; Arch Biochem Biophys; BoneKey Reports; Br J Pharmacol. Reviewer: >40 international Journals & 15 grant agencies.
Professional Societies: President: Association of Osteobiology. Past Treasurer: ECTS. Past Vice President, IBMS; Current member: Research Prize Committee, AuSBMR; Women’s Committee, ASBMR.
Publications: 180 peer-review articles
Scientific achievements: Osteoclast isolation, characterization, podosome discovery, intracellular calcium mobilization and pH regulation; pathogenesis and experimental therapy of osteopetrosis; role of c-Src in osteoblasts; role of IL-6 in bone metabolism; role of PRELP and CHAD in bone metabolism; role of lipocalin 2 in bone biomechanics.

Geert Carmeliet is MD, trained in pediatrics (KU Leuven, Belgium) and obtained her PhD in Biomedical Sciences (KU Leuven). Since 1995, she switched to an academic career and is now Professor in Medicine and Chairman of the Division of Clinical and Experimental Endocrinology, KU Leuven. She is first, corresponding and/or senior author in a broad spectrum of basic and translational journals in the field of bone development, pathology and regeneration, but also in more general biomedical journals including Nature, Cell Metab, JCI, PNAS. She is involved in training and teaching medical students and PhD students. She is member of the Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium, member of the FWO expert panel and was member of the Scientific Research Council, KU Leuven. She is an invited speaker at international conferences (Gordon, Keystone, ASBMR).

Christian Meier is associate professor of endocrinology at the University of Basel and serves as consultant at the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Clinical Nutrition at University Hospital Basel, Switzerland. Christian received his scientific and medical training (Swiss Board Certification Internal Medicine 1997 and Endocrinology & Diabetology 1999) in Switzerland and in Australia. From 2002-2004, he joined the Bone Biology Research Group at the ANZAC Research Institute in Sydney and was involved in various clinical projects assessing the clinical utility of bone turnover markers. His research interests include various aspects of bone and mineral metabolism, specifically pathophysiological aspects of male osteoporosis and diabetic bone disease.

Christian is past-president of the Swiss Society against osteoporosis (SVGO), serves as committee member of the Dachverband deutschsprachiger osteologischer Gesellschaften e.V. (DVO), is member of the Committee Scientific Advisors of the International Osteoporosis Foundation (IOF), and co-chairs the ECTS Clinical Practice Action Group.

Claudine Blin is research director and head of the team “Osteoimmunology, Niches and Inflammation” at the Laboratory of Molecular Physiomedicine, Nice, France. She obtained her PhD from the University Paris Diderot in 1995. In 2003, she established her independent research group on osteoimmunology in Nice. Her team projects are at the interface between osteology, immunology and stem cell biology, mostly in the context of chronic inflammatory diseases. She has a special interest in the heterogeneity and innate immune function of osteoclasts, their interaction with immune cells, and their contribution in inflammatory bone destruction. Claudine Blin has been secretary and is president elect of the French Society of Mineral Tissue Biology (SFBTM) and co-chairs the ECTS PhD training action group. She is a member of the scientific board of the French Arthritis Fondation and a member of the scientific and educational committee of the Life University School of Research, University Cote d’Azur.

Nuria was born in Barcelona and received my MD from the University of Barcelona. She was trained in Rheumatology at the Hospital Clínic and since 2004 she has been Head of the Department of Rheumatology at the Hospital Clinic in Barcelona. Nuria obtained her PhD in 1987 from the University of Barcelona, and since 2007 she has been Professor of Medicine at this University. Nuria was visiting scientist at the Jewish Hospital in St Louis, MO (1988) and at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, MD (1992). She received the Professional Excellence Award from the Medical Association of Barcelona (2009). She has authored over 130 publications in the field of bone diseases, with her main areas of interest being bone turnover markers and bone disease in chronic liver diseases. At present, she an Associate Editor of BONE. She leads an active though small group of scientists in bone diseases.

Willem Lems is Professor of Rheumatology at Amsterdam UMC, where he is also currently the vice-chair and the Educational Officer of the Department of Rheumatology. Professor Lems completed his medical education in 1983 and qualified as Rheumatologist in 1993. Since then, his research into Metabolic Changes in Patients with Rheumatic Diseases has led to the publication of over 400 articles. Apart from Bone Diseases, his current research focusses on the early treatment of Rheumatoid Arthritis as well as targeting phenotypes in hip- and knee osteoarthritis. He is the founding member of the Oslo-Truro-Amsterdam collaborative study, is on the editorial board of several journals, including Osteoporosis International, and served as member of the Scientific Committee for EULAR, IOF and ECTS and most recently as Clinical Co-Chair for ECTS 2021. He is a member of the ECTS corporate engagement group and, together with Astrid Bakker, organised the 2018 ECTS PhD training course.

Ciro Menale graduated in Molecular and Industrial Biotechnology at University of Naples “Federico II” in 2010, working in the field of Enzyme Biotechnology. Ciro received his PhD in Biomedical and Biotechnological Science – “Food and Health” at University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli” in 2013, in Naples, Italy. During his PhD he was focused on gene expression regulation of the adipose tissue in pathological conditions, and he deepened his studies in murine models at YALE University School of Medicine, working on hypothalamic regulation of glucose homeostasis and whole body energy balance. In that context he started to be familiar also with immunology. In parallel he was interested in nanotechnology for cancer treatment.
As a PostDoc he moved to the bone field. His research was mainly focused on bone marrow mesenchymal stromal cells (MSC) and iPSC-derived MSC Transplantation by exploiting 3D culture models as novel approach for RANKL-dependent Osteopetrosis. At the same time, taking advantage of the osteopetrotic Rankl-/- mouse model, he contributed to investigate a novel anabolic role of RANKL in bone. Ciro also investigated the interaction of bone and immune cells focusing on bone loss and immune system defects driven by oxidative stress in bone cells. Today he is RTD at University of Naples “Federico II”, Italy, working on bone cell metabolism, glucose and energy balance.

Full Professor of Internal Medicine, “Sapienza” University of Rome. Medical Degree and Specialization in Internal Medicine at “Sapienza” University of Rome; Visiting Doctorat the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA; Past president of the ltalian Society of Osteoporosis, Mineral Metabolism and Skeletal Diseases (SIOMMMS) (2009-2011 ); Member of the Professional Practice Committee of the ASBMR (2009-2011 ); Member of the Executive Committee of the ltalian Society of Internal Medicine (2014-2018); Associate Editor of the Journal of Endocrinological Investigation; Member of Editorial Board of Aging Clinical and Experimental Research, Calcified Tissue International, Osteoporosis International and Bone Research; Author or co-author of more than 325 articles in peer-reviewed journals and book chapters, H-index: 56 (Google Scholar); Reviewer for more than 50 Journals; Head/Chief physician of inpatients and outpatients services at the Department of Internal Medicine and Medical Disciplines, University Hospital “Policlinico Umberto I”, Rome. Principal investigator of international trials especially related to experimental new drugs in the field of osteoporosis.

Dr. van Wijnen received BSc (1983) and MSc (1987) degrees from the University of Utrecht, Netherlands while also affiliated with the University of Florida (1984-1987). He received his PhD from UMass Medical School (Worcester, MA) in 1991, and ascended the academic faculty ranks (Assistant Professor, Associate Professor and Professor). In 2012, he established a new research group at Mayo Clinic focusing on orthopedic tissue regeneration, musculoskeletal tumors and translational applications. Currently, he has an H-factor of 75 and has authored >500 PubMed papers that have been collectively cited >20,000 times .

The van Wijnen group focuses on projects that examine biological and mechanistic questions fundamental to regulation and deregulation of bone cell growth and differentiation using state-of-the-art approaches including genomics, proteomics, mouse genetics and microscopy to address gene regulation, cell signaling, microRNAs and epigenetics. The group has broad interests on biological mechanisms and patient-oriented research related to regenerative medicine, musculoskeletal development (bone, cartilage, ligament & tendon), as well as pluripotent embryonic and multipotent adult stem cells.

Annegreet Veldhuis-Vlug (1982) is an internist-endocrinologist specialized in osteoporosis and
calcium/phosphate disorders in the Jan van Goyen Medical Center and the Onze Lieve Vrouwe Gasthuis Hospital in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Her main research focus is the endocrine regulation of bone marrow fat and body composition with a special focus on menopause and PTH and, following her postdoc at the Maine Medical Center Research Institute in the USA, she is now affiliated as a researcher to the Center for Bone Quality of the Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands. She was selected as a member of the ECTS Academy in 2017 and in 2019 she was elected co-chair. In addition, she is a member of the Scientific Board of the International Bone Marrow Adiposity Society and co-chair of the BMAS Methodology Working group. Since 2019 she is the Ambassador of the ASBMR for the Netherlands.