ECTS has a strong tradition of bringing you the most recent and relevant developments in basic- and translational science in the field of bone biology, and the Valencia 2018 meeting will be no exception to that! Eminent speakers from around the globe will discuss hot topics in their respective fields and reflect on where we stand with our knowledge and what to do with it. Yet, scientific knowledge and methodology itself is now part of this reflection, and that is why we have organized a symposium on what is now known as “the reproducibility crisis”. The biomedical ecosystem of scientists, clinicians, journals, funders, academia, government, and industry is under scrutiny regarding sloppy science, perverse incentives, and wasted tax payer money. Speakers from outside the bone field will discuss these important issues which concern us all and so our community can learn from this.
In another symposium we will also learn how genetic and genomics technology has brought biological insights to our field and how the pharmaceutical industry is using this in improving drug target discovery and assessments. Both the pathophysiology and the clinical aspects of the role of inflammation in bone loss will be addressed in a special symposium.
In several workshops we will pay particular attention to fish as a model for skeletal diseases, the intimate interplay of cancer and bone with lectures on genetic disorders and bone tumours and RANKL signaling and oncogenesis, and energy metabolism and bone with lectures on bioenergetics of bone cells and how the intestinal microbiome influences energy homeostasis.
Finally, we will have traditional strongholds of the program consisting of meeting the experts, the basic bone biology update, meetings of the several active working groups, and a special program for members of the several EU-consortia which focus on different aspects of bone biology. The past meetings in Rome and Salzburg where the EU consortia came together were a great success, and where else than at the ECTS to bring together these high profile pan-European efforts ?