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Medical specialties concentrating on organ-based diseases have flourished during the last 50 years. This focus on the role of the heart, lungs and kidneys in human diseases, by a new breed of clinician-investigators, has stimulated the growth of patho-physiological and clinical knowledge at an unprecedented rate and has produced major benefits for patients. Advances in organ transplantation, artificial organs, as well as in cardiovascular and renal medications can largely be attributed to strong scientific structures built upon organ-centred medical specialities. These specialties still retain and will likely maintain considerable heuristic potential in the foreseeable future. Yet, many believe that recent discoveries spurred by deciphering of the human genome, by the development of new technologies allowing simultaneous monitoring of disparate metabolic systems, by progress in cell biology [1] as well as by tremendous progress in telecommunications and in clinical informatics have all tended to lower the borders between specialties as they are perceived today [2]. This new scenario has facilitated a blossoming of inter-speciality areas where professionals, clinical investigators, and basic scientists alike can look at disease with a fresh integrative approach.  The borders circumscribing nephrology and cardiovascular medicine have always been permeable, and nephrologists and cardiologists can boast of a long tradition of close collaboration. For example, the various national and international societies focusing on hypertension, such as the European Society of Hypertension, the American Society of Hypertension and the International Society of Hypertension, represent the shared intellectual efforts of nephrologists, cardiologists and endocrinologists to investigate a condition that cuts deep across these medical specialities.  The emergence of chronic kidney disease (CKD) as a public health priority [3], a phenomenon that has materialized during the last decade, is one of the most challenging problems in modern medicine. It is now firmly established that renal dysfunction portends a high risk for cardiovascular disease. Cardiovascular diseases remain the main cause of death in western societies, and the increase in risk of death associated with coexisting CKD, though still poorly understood, appears considerable. The bidirectional link between renal and cardiovascular diseases, the high risk of the death signalled by their coexistence (which goes beyond BP and classical risk factors [4]) and the considerable epidemiological burden imposed by this link are at the basis of an emerging discipline aimed at further lowering the borders between nephrology and cardiovascular medicine. Cardio-nephrology or nephro-cardiology societies (the designations betraying the specialty of the proponents) have already been instituted. The importance of this border area between the two disciplines has been illustrated in the scientific programs of major nephrology and cardiology societies wherein presentations focusing on these themes have shown a prominent time-sharing in the meetings organized by these societies.  To respond to these ongoing changes in medicine and science, the ERA-EDTA has recently launched an initiative aimed at promoting collaboration between nephrologists and other specialists on themes of major clinical and scientific interest. This initiative proposes the creation of working groups (WG), which will consist of concerted efforts of groups of interested professionals working together to achieve specific clinical, scientific and educational goals, that will provide a central means for fostering advancement in renal medicine and allied sciences.  The ERA-EDTA has a large base of clinicians and investigators interested in the relationships between the kidneys and the cardiovascular system. At the most recent ERA-EDTA Congress in Stockholm in 2008 (Figure ​(Figure1),1), there were 10 free communication sessions and 12 poster sessions that were largely composed of themes that directly or indirectly focused on links between the kidney and cardiovascular systems. Overall, there were 356 presentations describing findings relevant to this relationship.    Fig. 1  ERA-EDTA Congress Stockholm, 2008.    The large interest on this theme-area among the ERA-EDTA membership was the stimulus for a group of clinical investigators with an interest in the field (the ERA-EDTA President G.L., A.C., D.F., D.G., B.L., A.M., G.S., A.W. and C.Z.) to propose to the ERA-EDTA council the creation of a EUropean REnal and CArdiovascular Medicine (EURECAM) WG. In May of 2008, the council approved this WG and ratified the proposal by the original investigator group to name C.Z. as the first WG chairman.

Promoting scientific collaboration and education in cardiovascular-renal medicine: EURECAM: An ERA-EDTA-based working group