It is a very special honour to serve as the President-Elect of the ECTS. I am a long-term member of our society and attended my first ECTS congress in 1990. Since then, ECTS for me has been the premier bone research society in Europe. My areas of research include markers of bone turnover, the pathogenesis of secondary osteoporosis, osteoporosis in men, the regulation of bone resorption and the development and characterization of in vivo models for bone research. I was among the first to delineate interactions between bone and the immune system, a field now termed “osteoimmunology”.
Being a physician scientist working in the bone field for over 30 years I fully support the ECTS mission to advance science for the benefit of patients with metabolic bone diseases. I have long-term experience in scientific organizations (including President of the Austrian Bone and Mineral Society). At the ECTS I served as the co-chair of the grants & awards committee and in the programme committee of ECTS 2020. There is no doubt that science and scientific societies are currently facing many challenges. I will fully support all activities of the ECTS to successfully master all challenges and to promote science especially in the young generation of researchers.