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.

Gudrun Stenbeck studied chemical engineering at undergraduate level and received her PhD from the Technical University Darmstadt, Germany, in 1993 after PhD work in the laboratory of Prof Felix Wieland at the University of Heidelberg. She then undertook postdoctoral work with Prof James E. Rothman at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre in New York before joining the laboratory of Prof Mike Horton at University College London to study the molecular mechanisms of osteoclastic bone resorption. She was awarded a prestigious Arthritis Research UK fellowship in 2000 to establish her independent research and is now a lecturer in Biomedical Sciences at Brunel University in London, UK. Her research focuses on the cell biology of bone homeostasis and extracellular matrix deposition. Her current research is aimed at the characterisation of the signalling events relaying extracellular stimuli to components of the intracellular trafficking machinery to develop new strategies for the treatment of osteoarthritis, osteoporosis and fibrotic diseases. Her research has been funded by Arthritis Research UK, the Royal Society and the Welcome Trust. She teaches cell biology and biochemistry at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

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.

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).

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.

Professor of Endocrinology and Osteology at the Medical University Graz, Austria. Head of Endocrinology Lab Platform and EndoGeneLab, Deputy Head of Department of Endocrinology and Metabolism at the University Hospital Graz. Research clinician involved in basic, translational and epidemiological research. Head of the 5–years Comet Project “BioPersMed” (Biomarkers of personalized medicine). 142 articles in peer–reviewed journals (both as Obermayer–Pietsch or as Pietsch B) with about 3000 citations. President elect of the German Society of Osteology (2015–), Secretary of the Austrian Society of Endocrinology 2012–2014, board member 2014–. Numerous research prizes. Member of EU FP7 consortia, steering committees and funding organisations. Reviewer for bone–focused and endocrine journals. Reviewer for national and international official research institutions.

Consultant of Endocrinology and Bone Diseases at University Clinic Dresden since 2012 (treated over 5000 patients in both an in-patient and outpatient setting), Investigator in several clinical phase 2/3 studies in the field of osteoporosis/rare bone disease, Investigator in the Dresden Bone Lab with focus in the interactions between thyroid hormones and bone tissue, Mentor of PhD students at University Clinic Dresden, Tutor in Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Bone Diseases at University Clinic Dresden, Active Member of ECTS Professional Practice Committee being involved in the development of clinical guidelines and position statements for the treatment of osteoporosis, Active Member of ECTS Bone Academy since 2017, Selected Co-Chair of ECTS Academy June 2019-2020 and Chair of the ECTS Academy June 2020-June 2021, Board Member of German Osteological Society and Founding Member of the German Next Generation Research Group in the musculoskeletal field, Active Peer Reviewer of international journals in the bone field.

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.

Associate Professor and staff member at the Department of Internal Medicine section Endocrinology of Erasmus Medical Center Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
She has initiated and is heading the Erasmus MC Bone Center, a multidisciplinary expertise center for patients with metabolic bone diseases and disorders of calcium and phosphate homeostasis. She is president of the Dutch Society for Calcium and Bone Metabolism (NVCB). Her research topics concern the genetic background of complex diseases such as osteoporosis and obesity, the relation of osteoporosis with chronic diseases and mortality and the genetic background of unexplained familial osteoporosis and atypical femur fractures. She is principal investigator in several multi-center trials on treatment of osteoporosis. She has published over 120 papers in high-impact journals with (shared) first authorships in the New England Journal of Medicine, Nature Genetics, PLOS Genetics and co-authorship in several Nature papers. She is frequently reviewing manuscripts for medical journals.