Professor Paul-Peter Tak is Director of the Division of Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology at the Academic Medical Center (AMC)/University of Amsterdam in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Following his undergraduate medical studies, Professor Tak received his medical degree at the Free University (VU) Amsterdam, and was trained at Leiden University Medical Centre, where he also received his PhD degree. He has worked as a visiting scientist at UCSD (La Jolla, CA) for 2 years and was affiliated with this university as Clinical Associate Professor for a further 5 years. From 2004 to 2008 he also served as Medical Director of the Dubai Bone and Joint Centre (Dubai, UAE). He founded in 2005 Arthrogen B.V., a company developing gene therapy, and has served as Chief Scientific Officer since then. Professor Tak has been principal investigator for more than 25 clinical trials and received numerous grantsm honours and fellowships. His major research interests include signal transduction pathways, the pathogenesis of synovial inflammation in rheumatoid and psoriatic arthritis and the development and evaluation of immunotherapies and gene therapy for these conditions.Professor Tak is a member of the EULAR (European League against Rheumatism) Scientific Committee, member of ACR (American College of Rheumatology) Scientific Committee, and Chairman of the Grant Advisory Council for EULAR's Orphan Disease Programme (ODP) on systemic sclerosis. His extensive bibliography includes a list of more than 250 peer-reviewed clinical and basic research papers, as well as books on various aspects of immunology and rheumatology.