UNIVERSITY OF PECS
Organisation Description
The University of Pécs (PECS) is a large university in South-Western Hungary with ten faculties. The Medical School of PECS has Hungarian, English and German undergraduate courses. Clinical immunology and rheumatology is one of the major research fields including long-term clinical follow-up studies on connective tissue diseases. PECS is continuously taking part in international collaborations in this particular field, and also has a related PhD program. The research team is involved in several international multicenter follow-up observational studies on rheumatic diseases including SSc.
Website: www.pte.hu (website in Hungarian, German and English)
Professor László Czirják and his team run one of the largest rheumatology hospital departments in Hungary. In clinical immunology and rheumatology, the senior staff has a longstanding experience in managing patients with connective tissue diseases. The patient follow-up database includes among other disorders 400 cases with SSc, 500 patients with systemic lupus erythematosus and 140 cases with inflammatory myopathies. The research group performs studies on the survival, disease activity score and other clinical-epidemiological aspects of SSc. PECS is one of the founding centers of EUSTAR. At present, Prof. László Czirják is the secretary of EUSTAR. Since 2009 he is the co-chairman of the Immunological Commettee of the Hungarian Academy of Science.
Team
Prof. László Czirják, Professor of Internal Medicine, Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology, is the director of the Department of Rheumatology and Immunology. He has 30 years of experience in the management of connective tissue diseases; his main field of interest is the investigation of clinical-epidemiological aspects of SSc. He is currently the Secretary of the EUSTAR, and between 2007 and 2011 he was the General Secretary of EULAR.
Dr. Gabor Kumánovics, MD, PhD is the supervisor of the Rheumatology Unit at PECS with more than 10 years of experience in SSc management, clinical trials and training of clinicians and students.
Dr. Tünde Minier, MD, PhD, is a young clinical researcher, member of the EUSTAR Young Investigator Group, and responsible for the SSc cohort of the center.
Dr. Cecília Varjú, MD, PhD is specialized in rheumatology, rehabilitation and clinical immunology. She is a clinical researcher with a distinct focus on SSc and inflammatory myopathies.