On February 28, 2014 the opening symposium of the Vienna Center for Rare and Undiagnosed Diseases (CeRUD) took place at the Jugendstil lecture hall of the Medical University of Vienna under the auspices of the Rector of the Medical University of Vienna, Wolfgang Schütz and the founding members, Arnold Pollak, Head of the University Hospital for Paediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, Hubert Pehamberger, Head of the University Hospital for Dermatology, Georg Stingl, Head the Clinical Department of Immunodermatology and Infectious Skin Diseases, and Giulio Superti-Furga, Scientific Director of the CeMM Research Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. The symposium was organized by Kaan Boztug, Principal Investigator at CeMM, and Assistant Professor, Department of Paediatrics and Adolescent Medicine and Director of CeRUD.

The Vienna Center for Rare and Undiagnosed Diseases has been established recently to pool resources and competencies in order to provide the affected individuals with the best possible interdisciplinary diagnostic analysis and care. This includes interdisciplinary clinical care involving many disciplines that are represented at the Medical Campus AKH Vienna and at the Medical University of Vienna. At the same time, CeRUD is involved in various internationally competitive research activities in order to promote the development of new strategies for diagnosis and treatment of these diseases.