New Members of the EMEUNET Sub-Committees 2024-2025

Rym is a specialty doctor who graduated in Tunis, Tunisia, focusing on autoimmune rheumatic diseases and vasculitis.  She is currently a clinical research fellow and a PhD student in the department of Ageing, Rheumatology and Regenerative Medicine at University College London and an honorary clinical fellow in the Rheumatology department at University College London Hospital.

Her research interests are mainly focused on systemic lupus erythematosus, trying to identify predictive markers of prolonged remission. She is also contributing to the ongoing lupus research trials in the department. Rym is the past president of the Tunisian Association of Young Internists and representative of Tunisia in the European Young Internists board.

Rym is a member of the EMEUNET Country Liaison Sub-Committee.

E-mail: r.abida@ucl.ac.uk

Denis is a physiotherapist by background and an Associate Professor at Izmir Katip Celebi University in Turkey.

His major interest is studying the effects of different exercise approaches in childhood and adulthood rheumatic diseases. He is president of the Association of HPR (Turkish) and the HPR representative of Auto-Inflammatory Working Party in PReS. He is also appointed as an affiliate scientist at Arthritis Research Canada.

Denis is a member of the EMEUNET Social Media Sub-Committee.

E-mail: ptdenislav@yahoo.com

Saverio is a resident in paediatric rheumatology at the IRCCS Istituto Giannina Gaslini, Genova, Italy.

His research interests are focused on autoinflammatory diseases, especially with the EuroFever/PRINTO registry for familial Mediterranean fever, and on the implementation of social media platforms for contemporary education in rheumatology. He is a member of the Italian Society of Paediatric Rheumatology and the emerging network of the Paediatric Rheumatology European Society.

Saverio is a member of the EMEUNET Social Media Sub-Committee.

E-mail: saveriolabella@outlook.it 

Milena is a rheumatology consultant based in northern Italy and a PhD candidate at Paracelsus Medical University of Salzburg (Austria).

Her research focuses on polymyalgia rheumatica and systemic vasculitis, and she participates in several international task forces dedicated to these topics. She is an active member of EUVAS and part of the Italian and Austrian Societies of Rheumatology.

She is a member of the EMEUNET Visibility and Global Affairs Sub-Committee.

E-mail: milena.bond@sabes.it

Guillermo is an Associate Professor of rheumatology at the University of Tours and in the rheumatology department of the Tours University Hospital, France.

His research interests are polymyalgia rheumatica and giant cell arteritis, ultrasonography and procedures for clinical research and administration of biopharmaceuticals for scientific research. He is part of the board of directors of the French Rheumatology Society and of the steering committee of the French College of Teaching Rheumatologists.

He is a member of the EMEUNET Visibility & Global Affairs Sub-Committee.

E-mail: guillermo.carvajal@univ-tours.fr

Mustafa is a researcher and clinician who completed his internal medicine and rheumatology training at Hacettepe University.

His primary research focus areas encompass rheumatoid arthritis, interstitial lung disease and inflammatory myopathies. Mustafa is an active member of the Turkish Society for Rheumatology, the Turkish Society of Young Rheumatologists, and GRAPPA.

Mustafa is a member of the EMEUNET Social Media Sub-Committee.

E-mail: ekicim@hacettepe.edu.tr.

Giovanni is currently a PhD student at the University of Pisa.

His research is focused on salivary gland ultrasonography and the role of multi-modal imaging techniques in rheumatology, particularly in the diagnosis and management of Sjögren’s syndrome. He completed his fellowship at the Rheumatology Unit, University of Pisa, where he also serves as a tutor in salivary gland ultrasonography. Giovanni is actively involved in professional societies, being a member of the Società Italiana di Reumatologia, European Reference Network on Connective Tissue and Musculoskeletal Diseases (ERN ReCONNET) and of the EMEUNET Newsletter Sub-Committee.

E-mail: giovanni.fulvio@phd.unipi.it

Roba is a rheumatologist at the Department of Rheumatology of Cochin Hospital APHP in Paris, France.

Her main interests include musculoskeletal ultrasound and the epidemiology of inflammatory rheumatic diseases.

Roba is a member of the EMEUNET Social Media Sub-Committee.

E-mail: roba.ghossan@gmail.com

Claudia is a rheumatology resident at Milan University, carrying out her research at Gaetano-Pini Hospital in Milan, Italy.

Her research interests are focused systemic sclerosis, interstitial lung disease in rheumatic diseases and vasculitis. She is a member of the Italian Society of Rheumatology, the EULAR lung study group and  EUSTAR YIG.

Claudia is a member of the EMEUNET Social Media Sub-Committee.

E-mail: claudia.iannone@unimi.it

Ufuk is a clinical rheumatologist at a training and research hospital in Turkey, and a prospective MSc student in Translational Medical Research at Heidelberg Univeristy, Germany.

His primary research interests are the concept of autoimmunity and autoantibodies, antiphospholipid syndrome and lupus. He is also interested in biostatistics. He is one of the co-founders of the Young Turkish Society for Rheumatology, the EMEUNET Country Liaison for Turkey, and is a member of the EMEUNET Country Liaison Sub-Committee.

E-mail: ukilgen@gmail.com

Jacob is a medical specialist in internal medicine and clinical immunology, working at University Medical Center Utrecht.

In his clinical work and research, he focuses on systemic lupus erythematosus and antiphospholipid syndrome, particularly the prediction of these diseases before they become overt. He cares for patients with any other systemic immunological disease. He is a member of the Dutch Society of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, and of EULAR. He is an editor for the Dutch Journal of Asthma, Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

He is a member of the EMEUNET Newsletter Sub-Committee.

Piotr is a PhD in Medical Sciences and an internal medicine specialist, currently undertaking his rheumatology training at the Department of Rheumatology and Immunology, Jagiellonian University Medical College in Kraków, Poland.

His research interests focus on patient-reported outcome measures, epidemiology and the application of AI in medicine. Clinically, he specialises in inflammatory arthritis, systemic sclerosis and rare diseases such as idiopathic multicentric Castleman disease (iMCD). Piotr is actively involved in research, including the Polnor Rheuma Research Grant working group.

Piotr is a member of the EMEUNET Social Media Sub-Committee.

E-mail: pkuszmiersz@su.krakow.pl

Magda is a clinician at Vardanants Medical Centre and an Associate Professor at Yerevan State Medical University.

Her research interests are connected mainly with systemic lupus erythematosus, Behçet’s disease and familial Mediterranean fever. She is fond of organising conferences and training sessions and is currently working on establishing a patient educational school for rheumatology patients in Armenia.

Magda  is the secretary of Armenian rheumatological association and a member of the EMEUNET Visibility & Global Affairs Sub-Committee.

E-mail: magdaosipyan@gmail.com

Antony is an NIHR Academic Clinical Lecturer in Rheumatology at the University of Oxford  and Oxford University Hospitals.

His research interest lies in immune regulation of autoimmune rheumatic diseases, particularly systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). He is currently focusing on high-dimensional single cell multiomic approaches to investigate the immunometabolic reprogramming in preclinical autoimmunity and SLE.

Antony is a member of the EMEUNET Newsletter Sub-Committee.

E-mail: antony.psarras@kennedy.ox.ac.uk

Victoria is currently a rheumatologist at the Medpark International Hospital and Assistant Professor at the Department of Internal Medicine of the State University of Medicine and Pharmacy “Nicolae Testemitanu”, both in Moldova. She holds a PhD degree in rheumatology, her research topic being cutaneous involvement in systemic lupus erythematosus.

Her research interests are mainly focused on systemic diseases. She has been a member of the Board of the Doctoral School of the Republic of Moldova since 2019 and she is the EMEUNET Country Liaison for the Republic of Moldova.

Victoria is a member of the EMEUNET Newsletter Sub-Committee.

E-mail: victoria.sadovici-bobeica@usmf.md

Marta graduated from Wroclaw Medical University, where she also obtained her PhD degree for research on the lipid paradox in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). She is now a consultant in rheumatology and internal diseases at Lower Silesian Hospital in Wroclaw, Poland. She is a member of the Polish Society for Rheumatology and Secretary for the Lower Silesia region. She has recently obtained her EULAR Musculoskeletal Ultrasound Competency Assessment Level 2 Certificate.

Her current research interests are focused on RA imaging, which she would like to combine with artificial intelligence methods for early detection and grading of RA activity, in collaboration with Wroclaw University of Science and Technology.

Marta is a member of the EMEUNET Visibility and Global Affairs Sub-Committee.

E-mail: marta.skoczynska@gmail.com

Yvonne is a clinical research fellow and PhD candidate at the University of Manchester and NIHR Manchester Biomedical Research Centre. She is  undertaking her rheumatology and general internal medicine training in the North West Health Education England Deanery. She has a keen interest in musculoskeletal ultrasonography and recently completed the EULAR-accredited intermediate training course. Her research is focused on predicting treatment response in patients with rheumatoid arthritis and difficult-to-treat rheumatoid arthritis using proteomics. She is a member of the British Society for Rheumatology and the associate advisor of the North West region at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

Yvonne is a member of the EMEUNET Visibility and Global Affairs Sub-Committee.

E-mail: yvonne.tan@manchester.ac.uk

Miranda is a post-doctoral clinical researcher and clinical trial coordinator at Department of Rheumatology of the Leiden University Medical Center in Leiden. In 2020 she obtained her PhD on the burden of early axial spondyloarthritis. Her major research interest is axial spondyloarthritis, with a focus on observational studies, imaging and patient-reported outcomes. She has an interest in methodology and clinical trials. 

Miranda is the study coordinator of the ASAS CLASSIC study, a member of the Y-ASAS Website Subgroup and  of the EMEUNET Social Media Sub-Committee. 

E-mail: m.van_lunteren@lumc.nl