Whilst many families were still on summer holiday, the OI-Community convened in Dundee (Scotland) for two vibrant events: The BBS (BrittleBones Society) was celebrating its 50ieth anniversary and the OIFE (OI Federation Europe) was celebrating its 25th. The meeting started with a 1 day scientific symposium on all aspects of OI, featuring some of the best researchers for OI worldwide. Most of the presentations ended with the sentence “More research is clearly needed into this area”. We fully agree with this! This is why Care4BrittleBones was founded!
It was impressive to experience the deep commitment of the researchers. It was also extremely interesting to engage with the OI community about research. Clearly, people with OI have strong views about what research is needed to improve their quality of life. And it is not always the same as what researchers think it is!
Care4BrittleBones participated actively in the OIFE meeting which brought together OI community representatives from many parts of the world united by one goal: to improve the quality of life for people with OI. In between these meetings, we used the opportunity to work, test and improve several of our ongoing research projects speaking with researchers and OI – community representatives which will -no doubt- increase the impact we can make with them. Thanks to all those who have provided input!
Once more warm congratulations to the BBS, which is the oldest national OI patient organisation in the world! And of course a warm thank you to OIFE for 25 bubbling years of connecting everyone in Europe and beyond to support each other! Care4BrittleBones owes a lot to OIFE and we are truly proud to be associated with this organisation as a supporting member.