Reflections on Charles Lapiere, first President of ETRS

Professor Terence Ryan, Oxford

On hearing of the death of Charles Lapiere memories flooded my mind. They were memories that stretched way back to my earliest days as a dermatologist. They are of Charles as a person and Charles as a pioneer investigator of the skin. There was his voice that was so French and embellished with a lisp that often made me listen more to its sound than its subject matter. There was also a lack of formality in his grooming such that I never think of him in a dark suit or black tie even though we must have attended together many "Black Tie" events. Mostly I remember him as cheerful and warm in his approach to others but there was one time when he seemed unhappy about the future of his department and his role within it. If that memory is correct then it would have been an anxiety shared by all who had followed his career from early days.

One of our earliest communications was when I published a difficult case of leg ulceration which he then correctly diagnosed as prolidase deficiency. But mostly Charles and I never discussed Dermatology with its diseases as a focus of our thinking, rather it was how the skin functioned that excited us.In those early days I regarded him as a more senior pioneer than I, playing a role, which I did not ,in setting up Europe's interest in Investigative Dermatology and in its bioengineering explorations.. Later we overlapped when both he and I saw the importance of mechanical forces in the transduction of biochemical signals. In this field he kept dermatology well to the fore and continued to do so throughout a long career as a foremost investigator.

While in Oxford with George Cherry we increasingly used leg ulcers as our focus within the evolving field of wound healing. Charles met with us on several occasions emphasising that we in Europe were doing something more than wound healing. He believed we were more aware than most wound healers of the function and failure of the skin from birth to tomb supported by a good knowledge of comparative dermatology from the tadpole to the large white pig. As he described in the tenth anniversary issue of the ETRS Bulletin, the Society was backed by Paul Janssen to start an international society. It was about the time that I was a Paul Janssen Fellow and there was much to-ing and fro-ing between Beerse and wound healing groups at several centres in Europe. Following one of the earlier training programmes for young wound healers (Summer Schools) that George Cherry organised in Oxford, Charles, an invited speaker at the first Oxford course, brought the concept of tissue repair to an informal discussion about the way forward for European collaboration in the European Tissue Repair Society which had recently been formed. The Belgian and the Oxford initiatives fitted into the pattern of development being generated. As also described, Charles steered the ETRS through relationships with the American Wound Healing Society and the early discussions about a Wound Repair and Regeneration Journal. All such terminology reflects Charles's thinking at that time.

A glance at his recent publications on "Pub Med" shows undiminished activity and a consistent tract along 'mechanical force' pathways. I have difficulty in deciding which I miss most : the "thoughts" of Charles or the special "sound"of his voice.