EUROPEAN  TISSUE  REPAIR  SOCIETY

The high point of the ETRS, its annual meeting, is fast approaching and Esther Middelkoop the local organiser gives us an update in her letter which follows. The response in the number of abstracts submitted has been excellent. The ETRS office has publicised its activities at a number of wound healing meetings in USA and the feedback is that a number of delegates are looking forward to attend the Amsterdam meeting.

As previously reported the ETRS Business Office is liaising with Blackwells, publisher of our Society’s journal, Wound Repair and Regeneration. If you have not yet filled in your ETRS membership renewal form for 2003, and want to receive the journal as well as being able to access it electronically, please do so now.

In May, at the Wound Healing Society’s meeting in Seattle, USA, Bill Lindblad, editor of Wound Repair and Regeneration, and myself had a discussion concerning the status and development of research into regeneration. I thought it would be of interest to have an editorial update as to the science of regeneration since the journal was established. I would also like to invite our members to submit similar essays concerning their views on the future of regeneration.

In this issue we have a number of articles ranging from Wound Healing in Poland to a Review on Wound Bed Preparation by Dr Willi Jung. The ETRS sponsored the first symposium on this subject in November 2000, in Oxford, which resulted in the proceedings of this meeting being published by the Royal Society of Medicine. Almost every week the Business Office is asked to supply copies of this publication to our website visitors. The science associated with wound bed preparation since that symposium has developed considerably as well as being applied in clinical practice. This has led to a number of publications to which Dr Jung refers demonstrating that the concept of wound bed preparation is a fundamental aspect of clinical wound healing.

ETRS and World Union of Wound Healing Societies Booth provided by the Wound Healing Soceity at their annual meeting in Seattle, Washington, USA, May 2003. Left to right: Liju Wang (Alberta, Canada), Chris Cherry (ETRS Business Office), Vince Falanga (Boston, USA), Gary Sibbald (Toronto, Canada), and Alan Holloway (Phoenix, USA).

In our ‘News from the laboratory’ section we highlight the new laboratory facilities for functional tissue engineering at the University of Leeds in the Institute of Medical Biological Engineering.

Throughout the world, especially in many developing countries such as India, Diabetes Mellitus is reaching epidemic proportions. My colleague, Terence Ryan has spent much of his life in actively being involved in wound and skin problems in developing countries, particularly in India and Africa. The experience gained in treating leprosy in these countries, pioneered by individuals such as the orthopaedic surgeon Paul Brand while working in India and later in Carville Louisianna, USA, is of great value in managing insensate diabetic wounds. Terence Ryan describes this transition from leprosy to diabetes in his article in this issue.

We look forward to seeing you in Amsterdam.

Dr George W. Cherry
Editor