The July 2011 issue of Nature Reviews Rheumatology features four Reviews from key researchers who gave talks at the inaugural Excellence in Rheumatology Annual Conference held in Istanbul in February 2011. The topics covered were independently selected from the conference program by the Nature Reviews Rheumatology editorial team. These Reviews—and the selected articles from across the Nature Publishing Group that appear here as part of this Nature Clinical Collection—discuss developments in two fast-moving fields of rheumatology, those of inflammatory arthritis and comorbidities. Topics covered include the epidemiology, diagnosis, outcome and management of early inflammatory arthritis, and the epidemiology and impact of cardiovascular disease as well as other comorbidities, such as stress, malignancies and infections, on the lives of patients living with rheumatic disease. The Reviews in this Nature Clinical Collection have been made freely available for 3 months thanks to support from the Excellence in Rheumatology Conference.