The ICMRS 2024 membership meeting was successfully held virtually on October 19 (Beijing time), with around 400 members joining the event.
President-elect Dr. Wentian Yang hosted the meeting, welcoming all attendees and delivering opening remarks. He briefly introduced the society and highlighted the importance of membership meetings for society's development. He specifically encouraged non-member attendees to join the society to maximize their membership benefits.
Next, ICMRS President Dr. Guozhi Xiao summarized the key achievements of the society over the past year. Notably, the society successfully hosted the ICMRC 2024 conference in Jinjiang, the first ICMRC after 2019. Dr. Xiao addressed the current membership situation and highlighted the importance of establishing closer interactions with sister societies to promote ICMRS international development. He also encouraged ICMRS members to participate actively in society activities and maintain high standards and academic integrity in musculoskeletal research. At the end of his presentation, Dr. Xiao announced the 2024 awardees of ICMRS distinguished awards.
ICMRS BOD Director Dr. Jean Jiang then briefly introduced the amendments to the ICMRS bylaws, which were passed unanimously by the attended members.
Afterward, Dr. Lidan You from Queen's University announced the Webster Jee Young Investigator Award winners and moderated the awardees' presentations. This year, the awards went to Jianguo Tao from the Zhejiang University – Westlake University Joint Training Program, Meagan Makarczyk from the University of Pittsburgh, and Hang Zhou from the Southern University of Science and Technology in China. They each delivered a 5-minute talk summarizing their outstanding work, followed by a brief discussion.
This year's keynote speeches were given by two world-renowned scientists, Dr. Matt Greenblatt from Cornell University and Dr. Fanxin Long from the University of Pennsylvania. They shared the latest skeletal stem cell biology findings and bone glucose metabolism research, respectively.
The meeting concluded with a reflection on ICMRS's 30th anniversary. ICMRS lifetime members and former leaders, Drs. Hong Zhou, Yi-Xian Qin, and David Ke, shared their emotional memories about the society's development since it was founded in 1993. They highlighted some important milestones, such as collaborations, leadership changes, revisions to the constitution, and name evolution, and offered their perspective on ICMRS's future.
