The ECTS Newsletter is of course first of all the medium for all ECTS related news and it will regularly update all of us on the Budapest ECTS 2019 annual meeting, the ECTS PhD training course, the ECTS webinar and other ECTS related issues. Next to that, the ECTS Newsletter fulfills a role in various societal and (bone) research related issues. And, although a relatively young instrument of communication, we have evolved last year by starting a new series on “Portraits of the national bone and mineral societies”. We thought that this is a very nice way to introduce the national ECTS-affiliated societies, to have a look in each other’s kitchen. Every two months, a new country is highlighted. Excellent contributions were received from Spain, having been the host country of the 2018 congress and from Denmark, Austria and The Netherlands. Please have a look at January’s contribution by Jim Gallagher who will introduce us to The Bone Research Society of the United Kingdom.
Team members of the ECTS Newsletter take turns in taking care of the topic “News from the world”. In 2018, we have had a wonderful mix of topics that we considered relevant for bone researchers, ranging from PhD stress, women in science, Altmetrics, fraud in science to new developments in anti-fracture treatment and the relevance of Vitamin D intake.
The Newsletter team is carefully compiled of members not only from the various countries, it should also have the appropriate mix of basic and clinical scientists. Athanasios Anastasilakis has been the clinician in our team and has made valuable contributions on recent developments in treating patients with bone-associated diseases. After two years of service, he will leave the team and we thank him for his commitment and his contributions. As a new clinical member, we welcome Cristiana Cipriani from the Sapienza University of Rome.
From January 2019, the format of the NL is slightly changed. We hope that this will keep attracting you to the content of the news medium for ECTS members. Last but not least, it is good to emphasize that the content of each Newsletter is carefully prepared in close collaboration with Roberta Mugnai, Bo Abrahamsen and our president, Anna Teti. If you want to suggest items for the newsletter, you are always welcome to share them with us, you could write me an email, to teun.devries@acta.nl and we will certainly consider all good suggestions.
Happy 2019!