At the beginning of February the Board met at the venue of our 17th Annual meeting of the ETRS which will be held in Southampton at the excellent facility which our President Karin Scharffetter-Kochanek describes in her letter in this issue, highlighting its features. Raj Mani, organiser and congress president, along with the organising company, Convenus, have made an excellent choice which will be complemented by an excellent scientific and clinical programme. As Karin has outlined in her letter, the Society is offering a number of awards and financial initiatives to young researchers and students to encourage their attendance at this important meeting. The website for the meeting is: <www.etrs2007soton.com>

In this issue we have an introduction to our new Board members, Dr Magda Ulrich, Dutch Burns Foundation, The Netherlands and Dr Boris Hinz, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland.

The work of Dr Hinz’s laboratory is directed at understanding the biophysics of cell contractility which is extremely important in normal scarring and in many clinical conditions such as Dupuytren’s disease and fibrosis affecting vital organs. Boris Hinz was a postdoctoral fellow with Professor Giulio Gabbiani in Geneva. Professor Gabbiani was one of the founding members of the ETRS and continues to support the Society in participating in focus meetings, particularly
a recent one he co-organised with Professor Alexis Desmouliere and Dr Christine Chaponnier.at Nyon, Switzerland.

Mark Ferguson, a major supporter of ETRS since its founding, has completed his rôle as secretary of the Society, which has been taken up by Dave Thomas of Cardiff. Earl Peacock, a surgeon and collagen researcher, pointed out in 1983 that ‘nowhere is the gap between basic research and clinical application more glaring than in the biology of wound healing.’ Mark’s experimental work into scarring, with colleagues like Whitby and others, helped us understand
some of the mechanisms of scarless healing in embryonic wounds and has led to clinical applications which are contributing to closing the gap referred to by Peacock. Recent clinical trials by his group on scarring have ranged from treating post-surgical scars with positive outcomes to preventative studies. Further utilisation of these treatments on other organs such as the eye and tendon are planned.

On personal reflection I first met Mark at the first Wound Healing Society meeting in Galveston, Texas in 1991 where I learned about his work, as well as at our Annual ETRS meetings. With my colleague, Dr Margaret Hughes, I have been aware of the details of the research of many of his doctoral students working in this field in his university laboratory. On behalf of the ETRS I would like to thank Mark for his work as Secretary over the years and I am sure he will
continue to take part and contribute to many of our future activities.

Dr George Cherry
Editor