Since the University of Pennsylvania announced their breakthrough discovery of the FOP gene ACVR1 at April 23, 2006, this date is now celebrated as International FOP Awareness Day! This year marks the 16th anniversary of the discovery of the FOP gene meaning 16 years of hope, progress and determination to find a cure.

The Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy from University of Toronto, Canada, awarded six Alumni Awards (https://www.pharmacy.utoronto.ca/news-announcements/exceptional-alumni-recognized-through-second-annual-alumni-awards) in different categories recognizing the remarkable achievements of alumni in pharmacy practice and pharmaceutical sciences.

We proudly present the new article by Silvia Colucci, Sandro Altamura and Martina Muckenthaler from our FerrOs Research Group on "Liver Sinusoidal Endothelial Cells Suppress Bone Morphogenetic Protein 2 Production in Response to TGFβ Pathway Activation" that was just published in Hepatology (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33982327/).

Our second FerrOs Webinar took place on September 28th. The FerrOs members were very keen on listening to the excellent talk of Delphine Meynard, who presented her newest work on the role of matripase-2 as a novel therapeutic target in diseases with ineffective hematopoiesis. Besides the stimulating talk, it was great to see each other again and get to know new members of the FerrOs consortium.

We proudly present our new review on "Shaping the bone through iron and iron-related proteins" that was just published in Seminars in Hematology  (https://doi.org/10.1053/j.seminhematol.2021.06.002).

Meetings during pandemic times – on June 4th we met online at our 1st FerrOs Retreat. Although we were not able to meet face-to-face, we were all very happy to “see” each other online and listen to the eight FerrOs projects so all new members could see what is planned and to discuss how we can interact during the next four years.