Josep Font Email.: font@medicina.ub.es

Josep Font, MD, PhD, is Consultant Physician in the Systemic Autoimmune Diseases Unit, Hospital Clínic, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.

Dr. Font qualified in Medicine in 1976 from the Universitat de Barcelona and from 1978 until 1982 trained in Internal Medicine at the Hospital Clínic de Barcelona. He obtained his PhD in 1984 from the Universitat de Barcelona for his thesis on systemic lupus erythematosus. His post-doctoral experience includes stages at the Lupus Research Unit, The Rayne Institute, St. Thomas' Hospital, London, England.

Among other awards, he has received the Award from the University of Barcelona for his Doctoral Thesis for research on autoantibodies in SLE and the Juan Vivancos Award from the Consorci d'Hospitals de Barcelona. He has been the recipient of research grants from the Spanish Departments of Health and Education and Science, the British Council and the European Commission.

Dr. Font is the president of the Catalan Society of Internal Medicine and a member of the Spanish, and International Societies of Internal Medicine. He is co-coordinator of the "Euro-lupus" project, the European Working Party on Systemic Lupus Erythematosus and the "HISPALES" project. He has co-organized international workshops of this working party in several cities in Spain and Europe, and is co-chairman of the next Conference on SLE (Barcelona, 2001)..

Dr. Font has presented over 100 invited lectures and has published more than 300 scientific papers. He is co-editor of several books, including  "Autoimmune connective tissue diseases", "Lupus eritematoso sistémico" and "Enfermedades Autoinmunes Sistémicas", among others. His current major research interest includes clinical and immunological aspects of connective tissue diseases, particularly the pathogenesis of vascular damage in systemic lupus erythematosus, primary Sjögren's syndrome, ANCA-related vasculitis and the antiphospholipid syndrome.

Dr. Font is Associate Professor in Immunology Diseases, in the Department of Medicine of the University of Barcelona.

Dr. Font is Member of the Editorial board of "Lupus" and Chief Editor of "Medicina Integral", and, since 1993, is member of the Expert Board of "Fondo de Investigaciones Sanitarias del Ministerio de Sanidad".