Our Annual Meeting in Brussels in May organised by Mieke Flour and colleagues had an excellent scientific programme as well as a magnificent social evening in the Colonial Museum. A unique feature of the meeting was a dedicated conference website prior to the meeting for registration and programme information. This was a new venture and like many other societies the use of electronic communications and websites are playing an important role. I am sure that Keith Harding who is organising the 11th Annual Meeting of the ETRS in Cardiff, 5-8 September 2001, would appreciate comments at this stage concerning utilisation of this form of communication for the upcoming meeting.

In this issue we have an article by Hobright and Vosskuhler re-examining the role of diagnosing infection in acute and chronic wounds. We also have an interesting article by Bucala from The Picower Institute for Medical Research, Manhasset, New York, USA which examines the concept of the fibrocyte; starting as early as 100 years ago, beginning with the observations of Conheim and Metchnikoff to recent studies on this important aspect of tissue repair.

In our section 'news from the laboratory' the work of Sabine Werner, a new ETRS Board Member and her colleagues from their laboratory in Zürich is highlighted.

The Society's official journal Wound Repair and Regeneration continues to be one of the leading journals in the field of tissue repair. William Lindblad, the Editor-in-chief who has nurtured the journal gives us an update on the progress that it has made.

Another report from wound healing activity in Europe is from Celelettin Celebi on the First Oxford-Eurasian Wound Healing Days, 19-21 November 1999, held in Turkey at which a number of ETRS members were part of the visiting faculty. An announcement for the Founding Congress of the Working Group Wound Healing of the German Society of Surgery in Tübingen is also featured.

Finally, we have added a new section called 'nuggets from Websites concerned with tissue repair'. This media has a vast amount of information related to tissue repair ranging from consumer pages to articles on mathematical models. In this issue I have included two abstracts from the Oxford Mathematical Institute website describing the work from two theses. The need for patient information concerning the treatment of their wounds by patients and relatives is evident by the variety of websites on this subject on the Internet. The quality of the information available on the Internet needs to be verified and sometimes challenged, but more importantly demonstrates the hunger for knowledge in our field.

George W. Cherry
Editor

Editorial address:
ETRS Business Office
Wound Healing Institute
Department of Dermatology
Churchill Hospital, Old Road
Headington, Oxford, OX3 7LJ, UK

Tel: +44 (0)1865 228264
Fax: +44 (0)1865 228233
Email: OxfordWoundHealingInstitute@compuserve.com