Dear Colleagues,

The IRA’s flagship academic event, the 39th Annual Conference for the IRA, IRACON is scheduled to be held from 21st to 24th November at Bengaluru. I look forward to welcoming you and hearing your views on strengthening our organization.  Please take note of key events including the inauguration function (Friday 22nd), Presidential and IRA orations (Friday 22nd), Kolkon and Young Rheumatologist orations (Saturday 23rd), IRA General Body Meeting (Saturday 23rd) and Valedictory function (Sunday 24th). Please visit IRACON 2024 – Bengaluru (iraconbengaluru24.com) for more details. 

I had the proud privilege of setting up and “manning” the “IRA stall” at the APLAR congress, held in Singapore in August. Along with the IRA President, I welcomed several rheumatologists from across the world including key office bearers of international societies and highlighted the work of the IRA in our fruitful interactions. Please check out the photographs here. 

The IRA’s webinar series “IRA eConnect 2024-2025” continues to grow from strength to strength with your support. On 17th October, in its 5th installment, the expert talk on “Therapeutics for SLE: CAR-T Cell and Beyond’ by Dr Natsha Jordan from Ireland generated huge interest and was very well attended.

The IRA strives to support rapid progress in all areas of rheumatology including clinical care and research. A limited number of travel grants is available for rheumatology trainees or IRA members below 40 years of age who have their abstracts accepted at conferences abroad. At this APLAR, 21 trainees and young IRA members supported by the IRA travel grants showcased their research. 

As a member of the IRA, you can apply for funding for your research. Please visit GRANTS (indianrheumatology.org) for more details and to apply. To propagate the awareness of rheumatic diseases among UGs and postgraduate trainees, IRA’s support is available for our members who wish to organize IRA UG-PG Rheumatology CME in teaching institutions. 

Please keep visiting the Indian Journal of Rheumatology: Sage Journals (sagepub.com) to read interesting articles. Please do consider the Indian Journal of Rheumatology which is the official organ of the IRA for your next submission. 

As a stakeholder, your views are very important. Please mail me your suggestions and queries at secretary@indianrheumatology.org.