Editorial introductions

Current Opinion in Rheumatology was launched in 1989. It is one of a successful series of review journals whose unique format is designed to provide a systematic and critical assessment of the literature as presented in the many primary journals. The field of Rheumatology is divided into 15 sections that are reviewed once a year. Each section is assigned a Section Editor, a leading authority in the area, who identifies the most important topics at that time. Here we are pleased to introduce the Journal's Section Editors for this issue. SECTION EDITORS Kenneth SaagKenneth SaagKenneth Saag, MD, MSc, is Jane Knight Lowe Professor of Medicine, Division of Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology, at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) in Birmingham, Alabama, USA and Professor of Epidemiology, at the UAB School of Public Health. Dr Saag is a native of Chicago, and following studies in engineering at the University of Michigan, USA, he returned to Chicago for medical school and Internal Medicine Residency at Northwestern University, USA. He then traveled to the University of Iowa, USA, for his rheumatology and epidemiology training and remained on the faculty there until moving to UAB in 1998. Dr Saag is the founding Director of the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality Deep South Center for Education and Research on Therapeutics, the UAB Center of Research Translation in Gout and Hyperuricemia, and the UAB Outcomes Research Center. He also serves as a Vice Chair for the UAB Department of Medicine. He has published over 300 peer reviewed manuscripts; has also authored more than 100 reviews, editorials, and book chapters. Recently he published the first edition of the clinical handbook Diagnosis and Management of Osteoporosis. Dr Saag is the Secretary of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) and Past President of the Board of Trustees of the National Osteoporosis Foundation. George C. TsokosGeorge C. TsokosGeorge C. Tsokos is a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and chief of the Division of Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, MA. His laboratory has led the field of molecular abnormalities on immune cells in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus and has identified previously unknown pathways that have served as the basis for novel treatments currently in various phases of development. More recently, he has launched studies to decipher the interaction between immune and kidney resident cells and to identify local processes that enable renal injury. Dr Tsokos has served in various leadership positions, including president of the Clinical Immunology Society, the member of the boards of directors for the American College of Rheumatology and the Lupus Foundation of America, member or chair of multiple federal study sections, and editor or member of the editorial boards for top scientific journals. He holds a MERIT Award from the National Institutes of Health and has received several prestigious awards, including the Kirkland, Lee C. Howley Sr. Prize, and Evelyn V. Hess awards; the Distinguished Basic Investigator Award from the American College of Rheumatology; the Lupus Insight Prize from the Lupus Research Alliance; the Carol Nachman Prize for Rheumatology; and the Dr. Marian Ropes Physician Achievement Award. He is a Master of the American College of Physicians and the American College of Rheumatology, a member of American Association of Physicians and Fellow of AAAS.