The boards of the two societies (1200 members each) tried to coordinate the different activities in the past but decided in 2007 to unify the societies in order to strengthen the political and scientific power. Finally, during the "Kongress fur Nephrologie" 2008 in Tubingen the fusion and the foundation of the new "Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Nephrologie" (DGfN) (German Society for Neofrologie) took place. The newly elected council consists of Prof. Dr. kerstin Aman, Prof. Dr. Christiane Erley, Prof. Dr. Jurgen Floege, Dr. Thomas Weinreich and Prof. Brunkhorst was elected for the president.

Because of the complicated german "vereinsrecht", i.e. the legal requirements needed to grant a charity status to the new society, the GfN and DAGKN will continue to exist until the end of 2009. For the purposes of the 2010 joint congress, the new society will the representative of the German nephrology community, as both the GfN and DAGKN have hopefully ceased to exist by then.

Some main topics for the future work of the DGfN during the next year will be:
1. To intensify the support of the scientific work with particular emphasis on connecting the results of basic science with clinical studies
2. To improve the early diagnosis and prevention of renal disease
3. To strngthen the influence of nephrologists on political and reimbursement authorities in order to mantein the care for our patients on a high level
4. To intensify the collaboration with our international partners especially at the European level.

We hope that all our Europen friens will support our work and our efforts to establish a strong German Society of Nephrology - DGfN.