Dear colleague,

The ECCEO9-IOF congress has been the largest event, worldwide, fully dedicated to clinical and economic research in the field of joint disorders.

More than 4.300 attendees from the fields of rheumatology, endocrinology, rehabilitation medicine, gynaecology, internal medicine and neighbouring disciplines, had the opportunity to enjoy the very high quality of the scientific programme.

- The Pierre D. Delmas Award has been bestowed on Professor Jean-Yves Reginster, MD. PH.D., in honour of his outstanding personal contribution to the International Osteoporosis Foundation.

- The ESCEO-Amgen Fellowships 2009 have been remitted to 4 young scientists, in order to encourage them to carry out a high quality research in the field of osteoporosis or osteoarthritis: Stéphanie Boutroy (INSERM - France), Youri Taes (University of Gent - Belgium), Daniela Merlotti (University of Siena – Italy) and Prisco Piscitelli (University of Siena- Italy).

- The Alliance for Better Bone Health Young Investigator Award has been remitted to Doctor Nicholas Harvey (University of Southampton – United Kingdom) in recognition of outstanding research, based on the most highly scored abstract submitted by a lead investigator under the age of 40 (“Indices of intrauterine growth may differentially predict postnatal development of skeletal size and volumetric density”).

We look forward to welcoming you, at the IOF-ECCEO 10 World Congress on Osteoporosis, next year in Florence, Italy. (http://iofwco-ecceo10.org/)