Dr. Luca Navarini is a Researcher in Rheumatology at Campus Bio-Medico University of Rome, Italy, and a Rheumatologist/Clinical Immunologist at Fondazione Policlinico Universitario Campus Bio-Medico, Rome, Italy. His research focuses on pain mechanisms in rheumatic diseases, cardiometabolic comorbidities in inflammatory arthritis, lipid mediators in autoimmunity and autoinflammatory diseases, and vascular and fibrotic pathways in systemic sclerosis. Following his MD graduation in 2010 and the Allergy and Clinical Immunology residency program in 2016 at Campus Bio-Medico University, Italy, he worked as a Volunteer Researcher at the Tissue Homeostasis and Disease laboratory, Skeletal Biology and Engineering Research Center, KU Leuven, Belgium. From 2016 to 2019, he worked as a Rheumatology Research Fellow at Campus Bio-Medico University of Rome, Italy. Thanks to a grant from the Italian Society of Rheumatology, in 2021, he completed a master’s Program in Epidemiological Methodology and Biostatistics for Clinical Research at the University of Milan-Bicocca, Italy. In 2023, he was awarded two research grants from the Italian Ministry of University and Research as a local Principal Investigator. He is currently a member of the Italian Society of Rheumatology (SIR, https://www.reumatologia.it/) and the Gruppo Italiano di Ricerca in Reumatologia Sperimentale e Clinica (GIRRCS, https://www.girrcs.it/). Dr. Navarini has authored more than 100 papers (https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8537-1510).

Omar-Javier Calixto, M.D., has been a Research Fellow in Rheumatology at Rheumazentrum Rhurgebiet, Herne, Germany since 2023. Additionally, he works as research physician at Universidad El Bosque.

Dr. Calixto graduated from the Universidad Militar Nueva Granada School of Medicine. He later pursued a specialty in Epidemiology at the Universidad del Rosario in Bogotá, Colombia, where he worked as a research assistant at the Center for Autoimmune Diseases Research (CREA). Subsequently, he completed his residencies in Internal Medicine and Rheumatology at the Hospital Militar Central in Bogotá.

His research has primarily focused on spondyloarthritis. Specifically, he has explored the impact of spondyloarthritis on healthcare and its economic burden, including healthcare-related costs of biological therapy for axial spondyloarthritis and the effects of cost optimization strategies on the national healthcare system. Additionally, he has shown a strong interest in translational medicine and basic research, particularly in analyzing differences in gut microbiome composition between patients with spondyloarthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, and healthy controls. This research aims to evaluate the impact of the microbiome on disease activity and treatment modifications, with the support of members of the Cellular and Molecular Immunology Group (InmuBo) and the Bacterial Molecular Genetics Laboratory.