I met Ron, Jan and Tom already in Finland and we are collaborating since 1990. This is 1991 IDF, Washington, DC.  When I visited Epidemiology symposium and Pittsburgh. Ron LaPorte invited me to Pittsburgh as  well Jan invited we next year for NATO diabetes genetics meeting. Next time I visited Pittsburgh in 1997 for writing a research proposal on genetic investigation of IDDM children in Novosibrisk. From this time Novosibrisk Diabetes register was only one for Russia  and second in FSU after our colleagues in Lithuania.