This year’s annual meeting in Cardiff September 5–8, is on schedule and judging by the programme which is in this Bulletin should be one of our best meetings. The deadline for abstracts is 15 June and information concerning this follows this letter. The ETRS meeting will be preceded by clinically orientated meetings as well as satellite symposia which will all be part of the International Wound Healing Meeting in Cardiff beginning Monday 3 September, 2001.

The ETRS website (www.etrs.org) has been updated and we would appreciate any suggestions that our members might have to make this truly interactive. We are interested in advertising both clinical and experimental positions in wound healing as well as National, European, and International meetings.

The ETRS Bulletin has a new corporate sponsor: Human Genome Sciences Inc., founded in 1992. The company is a pioneer in the use of genomics, the study of all human genes and the development of new pharmaceutical products. It is actively involved in developing a recombinant keratinocyte growth factor-2 (Repifermin) and has carried out experimental and clinical studies on this growth factor. Further information can be obtained from their website (www. hgsi.org). In a future issue of the ETRS Bulletin there will be an article in the ‘News from Industry’ section from Human Genome Sciences, with regard to their wound healing activities.

In this issue we have the abstracts from the recent ETRS Focus Meeting on Wound Bed Preparation held in November 2000 in Oxford, which proved to be very successful.

Wound Healing in Finland is highlighted by Salla Seppännen and Helvi Hietanen. In this issue ‘News from the Laboratory of …’ comes from Professor Andrew Boulton’s group at Manchester Royal Infirmary, UK which describes the activity of DIALEX (The DIAbetes Lower EXtremity Research Group). We also feature news from the European Wound Management Association which was founded in 1991 and is actively involved in the promotion of wound education and research and will be having their 11th annual meeting in Dublin, May 17–19, 2001. This organisation has established a working relationship with individuals interested in Wound Healing in Slovenia.

The ETRS Bulletin continues to request its readers to send in articles ranging from concepts in basic research in tissue repair to clinical wound management as well as contentious ideas in this field.

George W. Cherry
Editor