The Guest Editors R.M. du Bois L. Richeldi R.M. du Bois is Professor of Medicine in the Dept of Medicine at National Jewish Health, Denver, CO, USA, and Senior Research Investigator in the Dept of Population Genetics and Gene Therapy, National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College, London, UK. He was previously Consultant Physician at the Royal Brompton Hospital and Professor of Respiratory Medicine at Imperial College, London, UK. He qualified from Cambridge University and trained in general and respiratory medicine in London. After a 2-yr period as a visiting scientist in the Pulmonary Branch at the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA, he returned to London to develop his clinical and research interests in the genetics, pathogenesis and treatment of interstitial lung diseases at the Royal Brompton Hospital, where he was head of the Interstitial Lung Disease Unit and the Clinical Genomics Group. More recently, he has been appointed to National Jewish Health, Denver, to work on translational programmes of research. R.M. du Bois has been Associate Editor for Thorax and the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. He is a member of the American Thoracic Society (ATS), the European Respiratory Society (ERS) and the British Thoracic Society (BTS). He has served as a member of the BTS Orphan Lung Diseases Committee, the ATS Planning and Nominating Committees, and the ERS Council. L. Richeldi is Associate Professor of Respiratory Medicine in the Dept of Oncology, Haematology and Respiratory Diseases, and Director of the Research Centre for Rare Lung Diseases, at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Modena, Italy. Since qualifying with an MD from the University of Modena and gaining his PhD in Cardiopulmonary Pathophysiology from the University of Rome ‘‘La Sapienza’’, he has worked in the Dept of Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases at the University Hospital of Modena and been Director of the Postgraduate School in Respiratory Medicine at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. L. Richeldi is a member of the editorial board for the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. He is a member of the ERS study group ‘‘Diffuse Parenchymal Lung Disease’’, and has several roles within the ATS, being a member of the study group ‘‘Infections and tuberculosis’’, a member of the Microbiology, Tuberculosis and Pulmonary Infections Program Committee and a member of the steering committees for ATS guidelines on ‘‘Diagnosis of tuberculosis infection’’ and ‘‘Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis’’. He is also actively involved within the Italian Society of Respiratory Medicine, the Cochrane Collaboration and the Italian Registry of Diffuse Lung Diseases. Eur Respir Mon, 2009, 46, vii. Printed in UK - all rights reserved. Copyright ERS Journals Ltd 2009 European Respiratory Monograph ISSN 1025-448x. vii