The meeting was opened with remarks by Dr. Danica Ramljak, Director-general of the RBI, Dr. Vesna Babić Ivančić, senior research associate at RBI and Dr. Selma Cvijetić Avdagić from the Institute for Medical Research in Zagreb. As part of the celebratory event, Dr. Antun Tucak, emeritus professor at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Osijek and editor-in-chief of the Medicinski vjesnik presented a special issue of this journal dedicated to the 80th birthday of Dr. Helga Furedi-Milhofer and 40 years of cooperation between the RBI, Clinical Hospital in Osijek, the Institute for Medical Research in Zagreb and the Faculty of Medicine in Osijek.

Professor Helga Furedi-Milhofer was born on January 31, 1930 in Dresden, Germany. She received her undergraduate degree in chemistry in 1954 at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Science, University of Zagreb, and went on to receive her PhD in 1963 at the same university. She began her scientific career at the Ruđer Bošković Institute in 1956, and progressed from research associate to scientific adviser. She retired from the Institute in 1995. Her most important scientific achievements were in the redirection of the Teak school of colloidal chemistry and the associated research in the precipitation of inorganic substrates in the area of biomineralization.

An important aspect of Professor Furedi-Milhofer's work was her broad network of collaborations with research institutions both at home and abroad (Israel, France, USA, Germany and Norway). Special emphasis should be placed on her collaborations in the study of urolothiasis which she initiated more than 30 years ago with Professor Anton Tucak (Clinical-medical research unit in the Clinical Hospital, Osijek) and Dr. Darinka Dekanić (Institute for Medical Research, Zagreb).