Yrjö Tapio Konttinen 1952–2014

Open Access-This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the source is credited. died unexpectedly on the 10th of December 2014 at the age of 62. Professor Konttinen will be remembered as an exceptionally productive and highly cited scientist in the fields of musculoskeletal and rheumatic diseases, as well as an inspirational mentor and teacher to a generation of medical doctors and scientists. Yrjö T. Konttinen was born on September 28th 1952 in Helsinki. He received his M.D. degree from the University of Helsinki and the University of Uppsala in 1977, and was board certified in internal medicine and rheumatology from the University of Helsinki. He began his scientific career early, during medical school, and defended his Ph.D. thesis dealing with the immunology of rheumatic diseases in 1981. His supervisor and mentor at the time was Professor Otto Wegelius. Professor Konttinen served as research director, and later as a scientific advisor, of the Invalid Foundation's Orthopae-dic Hospital, Orton; as a scientific advisor for Coxa Hospital for Joint Replacement; from 2001 to 2003 as President of the Finnish Society for Rheumatology; and from 2007 as Vice-director of the National Doctoral Program of Musculoskeletal Disorders and Biomaterials. Yrjö T. Konttinen was an enthusiastic and creative scientist who never grew tired of " reading stories from the golden book of nature " , wording that he often used to describe the process of scientific discovery. Together with his dear friend and colleague, the late Seppo Santavirta, Professor of Ortho