Dear Friends and Colleagues ESID Members,  

It was wonderful meeting so many of you at the past Lisbon 2018 Biannual Meeting which was a tremendous success.

We could count 2470 participants from 92 countries. 855 abstracts had been submitted. I would like to sincerely thank the entire Portugese organising committee with Joao Neves, Ana Cordeiro and José Gonçalo Marques  as well as the international scientific committee and the ESID board, who prepared an exciting scientific and clinical program from the educational day and keynote lecture to the late breaker session. 

It was also moving to see Prof. Claude Griscelli honoured with the ESID lifetime achievement award and applauded in a standing ovation. No meeting is perfect however, no speakers’ and chairs’ distribution completely in balance and I have listened and will continue to listen to your suggestions to do even better at the focused meeting in Brussels 2019 and at the biannual meeting 2020 in Birmingham. 

I also wish to express my sincere gratitude to the many ESID Members who have shown their engagement and commitment for our society by running for an opening WP Chair function during the past elections. I am confident that you will be able to engage in the mission of ESID regardless of the election results. At the same time I thank the outgoing board members for their great passion and commitment: thank you Eleonora Gambineri, thank you Peter Olbrich, Peter Jandus, Kaan Boztug and Nizar Mahlaoui. You will be missed but not forgotten.

I welcome Anne Puel as Genetics WP Chair, Clara Franco as Junior WP Chair, Joao Neves as PID in Development Chair, Despina Moshous as Educational WP Chair and Mikko Seppänen as the Registry WP Chair. I look very much forward to working with you and I applaud the growing diversity in country representation in our board. I am happy to be able to count on the continuous support and efforts of Andy Gennery, Arjan Lankester, Mirjam Van Der Burg, Fabio Candotti and outgoing president Andrew Cant as my co-pilots in this undertaking.  

As your new President, I will give it my best effort to navigate ESID through the changing waters of a growing society with many questions and challenges ahead while never forgetting our mission statement: “ESID believes that every child, adolescent and adult born with a defective immune system has the right to benefit from both clinical and scientific knowledge. Therefore, our mission is to enable patients with primary immunodeficiency diseases to live their lives to its full potential by improving awareness, diagnosis, treatment, education and understanding of these diseases. ESID is committed to promote collaboration between healthcare professionals, patient organisations, industry and governmental bodies and to foster education and research.” Let us continue changing the lives of those affected by primary immunodeficiency, throughout Europe, and beyond. 

Do not hesitate to voice your opinion, ideas and suggestions. Thank you for your trust.  

Isabelle Meyts