Welcome to the latest addition of Artery Research. This issue sees the first in a series of ARTERY Society guidelines for validation of non-invasive haemodynamic measurement devices. As pulse wave velocity is the current ‘gold standard’ for assessing arterial stiffness in clinical practice, the first set of guidelines appropriately focuses on validation of devices to measure this parameter. Future issues will carry validation guidelines for other important parameters such as central aortic blood pressure.

As the number of available devices to assess arterial stiffness continues to increase exponentially, I feel that these guidelines will be especially valuable to clinicians who wish to adopt measurements of arterial stiffness into their routine clinical practice.

The past few months have been ever busy and have seen a number of exciting developments. In May ARTERY held a joint symposium with the American Society of Hypertension during their annual conference in New York. This was even more successful than the organisers anticipated with standing room only! Indeed, ASH was so pleased with the turnout that they offered ARTERY the opportunity of two further joint symposia at the 2011 and 2012 ASH meetings.

I am also delighted to report that our colleagues in the USA have been so impressed by ARTERY that they have now formed their own society North American Artery (NAA). I am sure you will join with me in wishing them every success. I look forward to joint meetings with NAA in the future.

I recently attended the 2^nd Pulse of Asia meeting in Tokyo, and can report that the study of arterial structure and physiology is alive and well in the Far East and Pacific Rim. The meeting was vibrant and enthusiastic with many novel oral and poster presentations. It is therefore wonderful news that the organisers have again asked for the meeting abstracts to be published in a forthcoming edition of Artery Research.

Finally, ARTERY 10 in Verona draws ever closer. The closing date for abstracts is the 25 June and I anticipate that we will have the largest number of abstract submissions to date. Myself and the rest of the Editorial Board look forward to seeing you all again in Verona.