President:

Bente Langdahl, Aarhus, Denmark
Email: bente.langdahl@aarhus.rm.dk

Bente Langdahl MD
Education/Positions: MD, University of Aarhus (1988). PhD and DMSc, University of Aarhus (1995 and 2004). Specialist in Endocrinology (2002). Associate professor, Clinical Research Institute, University of Aarhus (2001-). Head of Osteoporosis Department, Aarhus University Hospital (2003-).
Awards: Research prize, The Danish Society of Internal Medicine (1995). Young Investigator Award, European Calcified Tissue Society (1997). Research prize, The Bone Decade (2002).
Editorial Duties: Editorial Board: Calcif Tissue Int. Reviewer: Osteoporos. Int, Bone, J Bone Min Res, Eur J Endo, Eur J Rheum and J Clin Endocr Metab.
Member of Societies: ECTS, ASBMR and IBMS.

Treasurer

Lorenz Hofbauer, Dresden, Germany
Email: lorenz.hofbauer@uniklinikum-dresden.de

Lorenz Hofbauer
Lorenz Hofbauer was born in 1968 and studied Medicine at the University of Munich where he obtained his MD degree in 1995 in the thyroid field. His interest in bone research was stimulated during a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester (USA) under the mentorship of Drs Larry Riggs and Sundeep Khosla from 1996 to 1999. In 1999 he moved to Philipps-University of Marburg, Germany, where he established his own research group focusing on the role of the RANKL/OPG pathway in bone disease, malignant disease, and vascular diseases. In parallel, he completed his clinical education in internal medicine, gastroenterology, endocrinology, and diabetes with board exams. From 2004 to 2007 he was a Heisenberg Senior Fellow and Consultant in Medicine. In May 2007, he became Head of the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Bone Diseases, Department of Medicine III at the Technical University Medical Center at Dresden, Germany.

Secretary:

Tim Arnett, London, UK
Email: t.arnett@ucl.ac.uk

Tim Arnett BSc PhD
BSc (East Anglia, 1974);  PhD (London, 1984).   Postdoc positions at Columbia University & University College London (1984-6).   Lecturer, Senior Lecturer & Reader at UCL (1986-2007).   Currently Professor of Mineralised Tissue Biology in Dept of Cell & Developmental Biology at UCL.   Research interests centred on the control of osteoclast and osteoblast function by fundamental regulators (eg, extracellular pH, oxygen, nucleotides).    Member of EU FP7 consortium (‘ATPbone’).   Member of editorial boards of several journals, including Endocrinology & CTI.   

Additional Board Members:

Miep Helfrich, Aberdeen, UK
Email: m.helfrich@abdn.ac.uk

Miep Helfrich MSc PhD
Miep Helfrich    graduated with a MSc in Biology from the University of Wageningen, The Netherlands in 1983. She continued her scientific training as a PhD student at the Department of Cell Biology and Histology at the University of Leiden, where she worked on osteoclast development in osteopetrosis. After gaining her PhD in 1988 she did her first postdoc with Mike Horton at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund (now CRUK) in London. She was appointed as post-doctoral research fellow in the Department of Medicine and Therapeutics in Aberdeen in 1992 and was awarded an ARC post doctoral research fellowship in 1997. This was extended in 2001 for 3 years. She was promoted to senior research fellow in 2001 and appointed as senior lecturer in October 2004. Since the opening of IMS phase II she has been active in establishing a core facility for histology and electron microscopy. She is currently director of this facility.

Maria Luisa Bianchi, Milan, Italy
Email: ml.bianchi@auxologico.it

Maria Luisa Bianchi MD
Born in Milan, Italy, Dr Bianchi gained her MD degree cum laude at the University of Milano, Italy, in 1979; specialization cum laude in Medical Nephrology in 1982.

Between 1982 and 1996 she worked as an Assistant Nephrologist in the First Medical Clinic of the University of Milano at the Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico. Since 1996 she is working in the Bone Metabolic Unit of the Endocrinology Division of the Istituto Auxologico Italiano, IRCCS, a private not-for-profit clinical care and research institution.

Dr Bianchi  has done clinical research in the field of bone and mineral metabolism, focusing on the epidemiology, physiopathology and therapy of skeletal demineralizing diseases, and on the new diagnostic techniques for the measurement of bone mass (photon absorptiometry and X-ray bone densitometry, quantitative bone hystomorphometry, radioimmunological dosage of calciotropic hormones).

She authored or co-authored more than 300 scientific publications, and presented scientific communications in most International Conferences and Meetings on bone and mineral metabolism.

Pierre Marie, Paris, France
Email: Pierre.Marie@larib.inserm.fr

Pierre Marie PhD
Dr. Pierre Marie earned his PhD degree at the University of Paris 7 and completed a research fellowship on metabolic bone diseases at the Shriners Hospital in Montreal, Canada, where he became Assistant Professor at Mc Gill University. He is now Director of Research at CNRS, and Head of the Group on Osteoblast Biology and Pathology at Inserm Unit 606 and University Paris Diderot at Lariboisiere Hospital, Paris, France.
The focus of his research activities was on the regulation of bone formation, with particular interest in cell and molecular biology of the osteoblast, the determination of mechanisms involved in metabolic, physical and genetic bone diseases, and the effects of strontium in bone.
He is a Board Director of ECTS, a member of IBMS, ASBMR and ESE. He serves as Editor of the European Journal of Endocrinology and in the Editorial Board for Bone and Calcified Tissue International. He served as a consultant for several organizations at the national and international levels, and for pharmaceutical companies. He has been an ad hoc reviewer for more than 20 journals. He has authored and co-authored over 190 articles and 100 reviews and chapters in books.

Aymen Idris (New Investigator Representative), Edinburgh, UK
Email: Aymen.Idris@ed.ac.uk

Aymen Idris
Aymen Idris is a pharmacologist and a lecturer in cancer associated bone disease at the Institute of Genetics and Molecular Medicine at the University of Edinburgh (Scotland, UK). The focus of his research has been the discovery and development of novel therapeutic agents for the prevention and treatment of bone diseases. His PhD thesis yielded a number of patents for novel anti-resorptive small molecules that target and prevent RANKL-dependent signalling. One of his particular areas of interests is the role of “cannabis-like substances” on bone biology and pharmacology. His research in this area has demonstrated that cannabinoid receptors play a key role in regulating bone mass and bone turnover in mice. His current research focuses on uncovering novel pathways vital for bone - tumour cell interaction, and discovering novel therapeutic agents for the prevention and treatment of skeletal complications associated with bone metastases. He has grant funding from the Moray Endowments Research Trust and was awarded the ECTS/AMGEN Bone Biology Fellowship in 2006.