Christmas and Holiday Greetings from the EAACI President, and a new scientific EAACI journal coming in early 2011
Dear EAACI friends,
At the end of a great 2010, I would like to send you my very best wishes for a pleasant and enjoyable holiday break, with good rest, joyful family interactions, and hopefully not too much work. Thank you for participating in EAACI events in 2010, and for being committed to the allergy field in your many different roles.
At the end of 2010, I can summarise an amazing 2010 for EAACI. This year we have organised the world's largest allergy congress that has ever taken place. I wish to warmly thank the Congress President, Professor Anthony Frew, the Scientific Programme Committee Chair Christian Virchow, and the EAACI Vice President for Congresses Professor Cezmi Akdis for making this a fantastic event. Apart from the large congresses, we have also organised four successful Focused Topic Meetings, including the Drug Hypersensitivity Meeting (DHM), the International Symposium on Molecular Allergology (ISMA), the first ever European Rhinitis and Asthma Meeting (ERAM) as well as the first ever Skin Allergy Meeting (SAM). Next February, we will organise the first Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Meeting (FAAM). EAACI is also investing in new ways of communicating science in the allergy field. For example, our websites, www.eaaci.net, www.theallergynews.com, and a future public website are also part of this integrated communication strategy.
The successful EAACI journals Allergy and PAI are soon going to get a sibling, the new web-based and open access journal "Clinical and Translational Allergy" (CTA - the website is under construction), which will invite scientists from all over the world to submit manuscripts in early 2011. This journal will be committed to a rapid per review process and rapid publication of accepted papers, and is organized under the BMC publishers umbrella. As all open access journals do, also CTA will have to charge authors of accepted papers a small nominal fee to cover publication costs. EAACI believes there is certainly room for additional journals in the allergy field, where much scientific work is performed, and open access not requiring subscriptions, is an explosively growing way of communicating science in the time of the internet-era.
I look very much forward to welcoming you at the 2011 EAACI Congress in Istanbul, which I can promise will be a very successful event. Beyond that, there are certainly many other events that EAACI is organising, including Focused Topic Meetings and Allergy Schools, that most likely can be of interest for you. Don't forget to follow EAACI on the internet, including our websites, our journals as well as our Facebook fan page.
Don't forget to submit an abstract to the EAACI 2011 Congress; the deadline is 18th January at midnight.
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and a very Happy New Year 2011!
Season's greetings,
Jan Lötvall
EAACI President 2009-2011
Are you an EAACI Facebook Fan? If not, join us now! www.facebook.com/eaaci