Daniel Aletaha (born June 15, 1975 in Vienna [1] [2] ) is an Austrian physician and professor of rheumatology. He has been head of the Department of Rheumatology at the Medical University of Vienna since 1 July 2019, [3] and the President of the European Alliance of Associations for Rheumatology (EULAR) since 2023. [4] [5] [6]
Aletaha studied human medicine at the Medical Faculty of the University of Vienna, obtaining his doctorate in June 1999 and subsequently completing his training as a specialist in internal medicine at the General Hospital of the City of Vienna. [7] This was followed in 2006 by his habilitation in internal medicine with his paper on "Therapy of chronic polyarthritis: strategies and their implementation". Aletaha completed further academic studies as Master of Clinical Sciences (MS, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA; 2006) [8] and Master of Business Administration (MBA, Danube University Krems; 2017). Research visits have taken him to the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, USA, in 2004-2006, among others. [9] Since 2023, Aletaha has been president of EULAR. [10]
In June 2019, he was appointed Professor of Rheumatology, succeeding Josef Smolen, and Head of the Department of Rheumatology at the Medical University of Vienna. [11]
Aletaha is the author of more than 250 peer-reviewed publications, including in international journals such as The Lancet and Nature Medicine .[ citation needed ] He is first author of the international classification criteria for rheumatoid arthritis (ACR/EULAR 2010 Classification Criteria for Rheumatoid Arthritis). [12]
In 2005 and 2006, Aletaha was awarded the Science Prize of the Austrian Society of Rheumatology (ÖGR), [13] followed by the Theodor Billroth Prize of the Austrian Medical Association in 2011. [14] In 2016, Aletaha was appointed Honorary Member of EULAR, [15] and in 2023, was elected President of the same organisation. [16] [17]
Arthritis is a term often used to mean any disorder that affects joints. Symptoms generally include joint pain and stiffness. Other symptoms may include redness, warmth, swelling, and decreased range of motion of the affected joints. In some types of arthritis, other organs are also affected. Onset can be gradual or sudden.
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a long-term autoimmune disorder that primarily affects joints. It typically results in warm, swollen, and painful joints. Pain and stiffness often worsen following rest. Most commonly, the wrist and hands are involved, with the same joints typically involved on both sides of the body. The disease may also affect other parts of the body, including skin, eyes, lungs, heart, nerves, and blood. This may result in a low red blood cell count, inflammation around the lungs, and inflammation around the heart. Fever and low energy may also be present. Often, symptoms come on gradually over weeks to months.
Rheumatology is a branch of medicine devoted to the diagnosis and management of disorders whose common feature is inflammation in the bones, muscles, joints, and internal organs. Rheumatology covers more than 100 different complex diseases, collectively known as rheumatic diseases, which includes many forms of arthritis as well as lupus and Sjögren's syndrome. Doctors who have undergone formal training in rheumatology are called rheumatologists.
Rheumatoid factor (RF) is the autoantibody that was first found in rheumatoid arthritis. It is defined as an antibody against the Fc portion of IgG and different RFs can recognize different parts of the IgG-Fc. RF and IgG join to form immune complexes that contribute to the disease process such as chronic inflammation and joint destruction at the synovium and cartilage.
Allen Caruthers Steere is an American rheumatologist. He is a professor of rheumatology at Harvard University and previously at Tufts University and Yale University. Steere and his mentor, Stephen Malawista of Yale University, are credited with discovering and naming Lyme disease, and he has published almost 300 scholarly articles on Lyme disease during his more than 40 years of studies of this infection. At a ceremony in Hartford, Connecticut in 1998, Governor John G. Rowland declared September 24 to be "Allen C. Steere Day".
Patient education is a planned interactive learning process designed to support and enable expert patients to manage their life with a disease and/or optimise their health and well-being.
Anti-citrullinated protein antibodies (ACPAs) are autoantibodies that are directed against peptides and proteins that are citrullinated. They are present in the majority of patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Clinically, cyclic citrullinated peptides (CCP) are frequently used to detect these antibodies in patient serum or plasma.
Sir Marc Feldmann,, is an Australian-educated British immunologist. He is a professor at the University of Oxford and a senior research fellow at Somerville College, Oxford.
Patient satisfaction is a measure of the extent to which a patient is content with the health care which they received from their health care provider.
Erika Jensen-Jarolim is an Austrian physician and medical researcher in immunology and allergies. She was formerly head of the Institute of Pathophysiology and Allergy Research at the Medical University of Vienna, and since 2011 has held the joint professorship in Comparative Medicine at the Medical University and the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, part of the inter-university Messerli Research Institute.
Christoph Zielinski is an Austrian physician and cancer researcher. A medical oncologist, Zielinski is Director of the Clinical Division of Oncology and Chairman of the Department of Medicine I and the Comprehensive Cancer Centre at the Medical University of Vienna.
Paul-Peter Tak M.D. PhD FMedSci is an immunologist and academic specialising in the fields of internal medicine, rheumatology and immunology. Tak has been the President & CEO of Candel Therapeutics since September 2020.
Francis Dudley Hart (1909–2004) was a British rheumatologist.
Ross E. Petty is a Canadian pediatric rheumatologist. He is a professor emeritus in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of British Columbia and a pediatric rheumatologist at BC Children’s Hospital in Vancouver, Canada. He established Canada’s first formal pediatric rheumatology program at the University of Manitoba in 1976, and three years later, he founded a similar program at the University of British Columbia.
Michelle Leech is the Deputy Dean of Medicine at Monash University and an academic clinician-scientist. Leech oversees the delivery of the Monash medical program and maintains an active research profile and clinical practice as a rheumatologist.
Sherine E. Gabriel is an Egyptian–Canadian rheumatologist and administrator. She is the fourth president of Rush University and James A. Campbell, MD, Distinguished Service Professor, having formally served as Dean of Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. In 2020, Gabriel was elected a Fellow of the National Academy of Medicine for "her leadership in academic medicine and recognition for being an inspiring thought leader in research, clinical business development and educational innovation."
Oscar Segurado is a medical researcher and academician. He holds a tenured professorship of Immunology at the University of León, Spain. Segurado has conducted research in the domains of Rheumatology and Immunology. His scientific work focuses on Rheumatoid arthritis.
Paul Emery is a British rheumatologist, researcher, and academic. Emery has been the Versus Arthritis Professor of Rheumatology at the University of Leeds since 1995, Head of its Rheumatology Department from 1995 to 2008. He is Head of the Academic Unit of Musculoskeletal Disease and Lead Clinician of Rheumatology at the Leeds Teaching Hospital NHS Trust, and was the Director of the NIHR Leeds Biomedical Research Centre from 2009 to 2022. He is known for introducing early intervention in inflammatory arthritis. Emery played a critical role in bringing sensitive imaging (MRI) into rheumatology practice. In 2012, Emery was awarded the Carol Nachman Prize for Rheumatology, and as of 2024, he has published over 1660 peer-reviewed articles with over 160,000 citations. Emery was the most cited European Rheumatologist in 2010, and was selected in the European Journal of Clinical Investigation's "list of highly influential biomedical researchers, 1996–2011."
Josef Smolen is an Austrian rheumatologist and immunologist and professor emeritus at the Medical University of Vienna. Since 2018 he is chairman emeritus of the Department of Internal Medicine 3 and the Division of Rheumatology at the Medical University of Vienna and Vienna General Hospital and was the chairman of the 2nd Medical Department and Center for Diagnosis and Therapy of Rheumatic Diseases at the Lainz Hospital, now the Hietzing Clinic of the Vienna Health Association from 1989 to 2017.