Roberto GerliRoberto Gerli is Full Professor of Rheumatology and Director of the Rheumatology Unit of the Department of Medicine at the University of Perugia. He received his medical degree in 1980 from the same institution, completing postgraduate training in Inernal Medicine in 1985 (University of Perugia), Rheumatology in 1988 (University of Pisa), and Experimental Medicine in 1990 (National Research Council). In 1989 and in 1990 he received a young investigator award for his presentations on Sjögren's syndrome at the European Workshop for Rheumatologic Research in Vienna and Copenhagen, respectively. In 1994, after an experience at the Rheumatology Unit of the Guy's Hospital, London, directed by Prof. Gabriel Panayi, he started a number of collaborative studies with Prof. C. Pitzalis, in particular on the pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis. From 2001 to 2006 he was Associate Professor of Rheumatology at the University of Perugia and became Professor of Rheumatology at the same University in 2006. He is a member of the Italian Society of Rheumatology and the American College of Rheumatology. Professor Gerli has a long-standing experience in clinical management of chronic inflammatory and autoimmune disorders and his Unit is a 3rd referral rheumatological Center covering a vast area of central Italy. Since the '80s, he has been primarily involved in the study of chronic inflammatory and systemic autoimmune rheumatic diseases from a point of view of basic and clinical research, with particular attention to the investigation of primary Sjögren's syndrome. In this field, he has published over 270 original papers in international journals, such as Journal of Clinical Investigation, Blood, Circulation, Annals of Internal Medicine, Archives of Internal Medicine, Journal of Immunology, Trends in Immunology, Annals of the Reumatic Diseases, Arthritis & Rheumatism. Many of these papers focused on Sjögren's syndrome, in particular on the immunopathogenesis of this disorder, and several of these have been the result of collaborative studies with prominent international Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology Centers. In the last decade, moreover, his research group, in collaboration with Prof. Yehuda Shoenfeld, produced a number of studies based on the role of inflammation and autoimmune derangement in favouring cardiovascular complications in chronic rheumatic and systemic autoimmune conditions and it described for the first time the impact of accelerated atherosclerosis in primary Sjögren's syndrome. Read More Read Less