Dear Tanaffos Journal Readers

National Research Institute of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (NRITLD) has been holding an International Congress on Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases for almost 10 years, attracting renown researchers and scientists in this field from all over the world. This congress was held during 15-18 Oct 2011 and hosted Iranian scientists as well as foreign participants from over 22 countries. This was the 5th consecutive congress held in cooperation with the European Respiratory Society in Iran. This year for the first time, the American Thoracic Society (ATS) had an active participation in the congress and the ATS president participated in the opening ceremony and scientific discussion panels. We would like to thank all invited international speakers for their active participation in the 5th Pulmonary and Tuberculosis Congress. The NRITLD takes its role as an advocate for better nation-wide health very seriously. We are still suffering from inadequate treatment of communicable diseases like tuberculosis and intolerably high prevalence of noncommunicable diseases like COPD and severe asthma. As a major by product of this meeting was “Memorandum of Understanding” (MOU) for collaboration between the ATS and NRITLD. This mutual collaboration brought achievements among which we can mention the ATS’s suggestion on selecting a few of congress abstracts for publication as a supplement in one of the issues of ATS Journal. Additionally, it was agreed on to explore ways in which the ATS journals and Tanaffos Journal can increase the dissemination and readership of the respective journals; and publication shared grants works. Besides, we are pleased to inform you that Prof. Johan Garssen from Utrecht University accepted our invitation to join the Tanaffos Journal Editorial Board team. He is professor of immunopharmacology at Utrecht University and Director of the immunology platform at Nutrition Research Institute in the Netherlands. He has published more than 120 peer reviewed papers in immunologic and nutrition journals.