Rik Lories, MD PhD, is full professor and head of the Department of Development and Regeneration at KU Leuven, Belgium. The Department includes the Skeletal Biology and Engineering Research Centre where he directs the Tissue Homeostasis and Disease lab, together with Prof. Silvia Monteagudo. He is also the incoming chair of the Division of Rheumatology at University Hospitals Leuven.
His research focuses on endogenous tissue responses in the joint with specific attention towards translational questions in chronic arthritis, in particular osteoarthritis, axial spondyloarthritis, and psoriatic arthritis. He obtained his medical degree summa cum laude in 1996. In 2003, he was certified as rheumatologist. In 2003 he also obtained a PhD in biomedical sciences at KU Leuven.
In addition to his OARSI position, he is board member of the Royal Belgian Society of Rheumatology and Scientific Chair of the Rheumatology Research Fund Belgium. Currently, he serves as associate editor for the journals Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases and Osteoarthritis and Cartilage. He has (co-)authored > 160 publications, including original research reports or reviews in Nature Medicine, Science Translational Medicine, Nature Communications, Journal of Clinical Investigation, PNAS, Nature Reviews Rheumatology and Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases.