Dear Colleagues,
It gives me great pleasure as the newly elected President of ESID to invite you to the XV ESID meeting in Florence, Italy. Of all the exciting options, the choice of Florence gave us only one concern: that the city's beauty might prove distracting to our attendees. The wonders of Galleria Uffizi, the Battistero with its famous doors and the Ponte Vecchio are only some of the many distractions that magnificent Florence has to offer. (I should also fondly disclaim impartiality and disclose that I began medical school in Italy!)
Still, I believe that the meeting will be even more compelling: those of us in the field of PID have watched and contributed to the tremendous progress in the understanding and treatment of primary immunodeficiency disorders. In another meeting in Italy – in Orvieto – more than 15 years ago, the first genes causing PID were reported. The late Dr. Robert Good closed the meeting predicting that "this is not the beginning of the end of PID, but just the end of the beginning." One can see just how right he was by recalling the fantastic meeting we held in October 2010 in Istanbul.
I'm sure that Dr. Eleonora Gambineri, the Congress President who remains as ever completely dedicated to the field, together with the help of the organizing and scientific committees, will create a most interesting meeting.
So, Eleonora, we all wish you success in organizing the meeting, and I urge everyone to mark October 3rd–6th, 2012 in their calendars!
Arrivederci in Florence in 2012,
Prof. Amos Etzioni, MD
ESID President