Certolizumab, an anti-TNF safe during pregancy? The CRIB Study results: an interview with Professor Xavier Mariette.

Professor Xavier Mariette, MD, PhD, has served as the Head of the Rheumatology Department of Bicêtre Hospital, Paris-Sud University since 1999, a role he took following 10 years of practice of clinical immunology. Professor Mariette has initiated a number of clinical research studies on biotherapies in autoimmune diseases. He is the head of the French RATIO (Research Axed on Tolerance of Biotherapy) observatory, collecting specific rare serious adverse events in patients treated with anti-TNF. He initiated the French AIR (Autoimmunity and Rituximab) and ORA (Orencia and Rheumatoid arthritis) registries of patients with autoimmune diseases treated with rituximab and abatacept. He initiated clinical trials in Sjögren's syndrome with infliximab, hydroxychloroquine and belimumab. Professor Mariette is involved in basic research, leading a group working on pathogeny of Sjögren's syndrome, relationships between innate immunity and B-cell activation in autoimmunity and the relationships between autoimmunity and lymphoma. Professor Mariette is also very interested in new ways of teaching. In 2007, he participated with other European Experts in the creation of the EULAR Web Course of Rheumatology in 2007. Professor Mariette has been the President of the Scientific Committee of the EULAR meeting, which took place in Berlin in 2012 and is in 2016 the elect Chair of the EULAR standing committee on investigative rheumatology. Professor Mariette is co-author of more than 430 publications referenced in PubMed with an H-index of 61.