Editorial - October 2020

Dear members of the DAP Working Group

We hope this mail finds you well! Normally at this time of year, we would be looking forward to meeting you all in person at our annual meeting which was scheduled to take place in Bad Nauheim (Germany). Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 this meeting is now postponed and will now take place on 13-15 October 2021. We are very grateful to our hosts, Professors Thomas Braun and Didier Stainier, for the huge amount of organisation and planning they have already carried out and moreover their willingness to move the meeting to 2021.
We are also very grateful for your help in voting for new members of the WG nucleus. The high level of participation clearly shows the ESC leadership that our Working Group is a lively and active community. The nucleus is now composed of the previous members: Dr. Monique Jongbloed (Leiden, The Netherlands), Prof. Lars Allan Larsen (Copenhagen, Denmark), Dr. Jose Luis De La Pompa Minguez (Madrid, Spain), and Dr. Stefania Rizzo (Padua, Italy), and the elected new members: Dr. Stephane Zaffran (Marseille, France), Dr. Duncan Sparrow (Oxford, United Kingdom) and Dr. Lucile Miquerol (Marseille, France). The nucleus is now chaired by Dr. Maurice van den Hoff (Amsterdam, The Netherlands) with Prof. José-Maria Perez-Pomares (Malaga, Spain) as past-chair and Dr. Bill Chaudhry (Newcastle, United Kingdom) as chair-elect.
From 1 September 2020, we must also say goodbye to our previous nucleus members: Prof. Antonio Baldini (Naples, Italy), Dr. Lucile Houyel (Paris, France) and Prof. Melanie Philipp (Tübingen, Germany). These friends and colleagues have been very active in our WG and we would especially like to thank Lucile for organising (and continuing to organise) the extremely well received "Hands on" sessions at our annual meetings. Special thanks also go to Antonio for acting as our treasurer and Melanie for being a very efficient secretary of the Working Group. New ESC rules, limiting service on the nucleus to 12 years, also mean that several other well-known members must stand down. Prof. Thomas Brand has always been an active member and always kept us on our toes with stimulating questions and suggestions. He has been a major advocate for establishing our Young Community. A very special thanks needs to be given to Dr. Robert Kelly, who has for the last 17 years dedicated a great deal of time organising and energising our working group and representing us on many committees of the ESC. Equally we must thank Prof. Deborah Henderson for her enthusiasm, time and energy given to our working group. Prof. Henderson did an excellent job by activating the membership to actively contribute to the working group in general, the annual meeting of our working group and heading our working group into the molecular age.
Although stepping down, we know that these experienced and friendly colleagues will continue their active participation in our working group and support our new nucleus members as they strive to further increasing the visibility of our working group.
Please can you ask your colleagues to also become members of our working group. The membership is free. To become a member, one simply has to send a short CV and a list of publications. You will then be invited to become a member by the Chairperson. Please do not hesitate to contact us directly if you have any suggestions or comments that might help us to forward our community. We hope to see you all again in person in Bad Nauheim in October 2021 for our annual meeting

Maurice van den Hoff, José-Maria Perez-Pomares and Bill Chaudhry