Joan Bladé has been devoted for the last 40 years to the care of patients with multiple myeloma and AL amyloidosis and clinical research on these diseases at the Hospital Clinic in Barcelona. He also spent one year at the Dysproteinemias Unit at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. He developed the Amyloidosis and Myeloma Unit at the Hospital Clinic in Barcelona. He has been the chairman of PETHEMA myeloma trials (later PETHEMA/GEM) since 1985, Secretary of the PETHEMA group (1993-2001), Founder of the PETHEMA Foundation in 1995 and Executive Secretary of the International Myeloma Society (2011-2015). Joan Bladé was the President of the X International Myeloma Workshop in Salamanca 2003 and the XVII International Symposium on Amyloidosis in Tarragona 2020. His main research achievements have been: 1) development of the EBMT response criteria, 2) recognition for the first time of two clinically and biologically different types of MGUS and SMM ( i.e., evolving vs. non-evolving), 3) first in recognize the lack of efficacy of thalidomide as well as the efficacy of bortezomib in the extramedullary myeloma involvement, 4) demonstration of the superiority of ASCT over conventional chemotherapy in multiple myeloma and 5) identification of boterzomib, thalidomide and dexamethasone (VTD) combination as the best pre-transplant anti-myeloma regimen (approved by the EMEA in 2014).