2008

Dear Colleagues:

The time for the 2008 Wound Healing Society meeting in the beautiful city of San Diego, California, is rapidly approaching. This will be our second year of collaboration with the

In response to requests from our members, many changes have been made that we hope will make this an excellent and appealing meeting. This year, our sessions will all be located in the same area of the convention center, we will have this area delineated by banners and signs, and we will have a large room where speakers can prepare and upload talks in advance and that will also serve as a place where WHS members will be able to interact over refreshments. This year WHS will also be represented in the Exhibitor s Hall with our own booth and will have a pressroom where scientists will be able to meet the press. The posters will be located in the same area, will stay up for the entire meeting and will be featured at a reception on the 25th. More importantly, as delineated below, a number of modifications have been made to enhance the scientific program. Please go to the Preliminary Program tab of the 2008 Meeting Site to see our schedule.

This year, we have organized six sessions with invited talks on hardcore topics that encompass basic science, applied research, and results of recent clinical trials. One of these sessions is dedicated to honor the memory of one of our past presidents, Anita Roberts, and will feature recent findings in the field of cytokines and growth factors. At this session we will announce the establishment of a new award for junior scientists in memory of Anita’s accomplishments. The Young Investigator Session will feature 7 young investigators and the winner of the same type of award from the ETRS. The session will be presided over by President Adrian Barbul, who will open the session, and by immediate-past-President Jeffrey Davison, President-elect Allan Holloway, and Vice-President Patricia Hebda. The top winner of this award will attend and represent the WHS at the next ETR meeting that will take place in Limoge, France. As always, we will have the 9 sessions for oral presentation of abstracts, in which most of our junior members will showcase their work, and the Blue Ribbon Poster Award that will recognize outstanding contributions from our industry colleagues.

We will also have a pre-conference workshop on Principles of Wound Care, and this year we have added another pre-conference workshop on Laser Confocal Microscopy. We will also have a post-conference session on the afternoon of the 27th in which various funding agencies will be represented and the speakers will address potential sources of funding for Wound Healing and Regeneration research. Furthermore, we have followed up on last year s new initiative of having a Meet the Mentors session, but this year we have changed the thrust of the topics to make the discussion more related to everyday problems scientists encounter during their careers.

Last, but not least, this year our keynote speaker will discuss the value of using a Systems Biology Approach to solve medical problems. This presentation will be followed by a panel discussion on the future of Wound Healing and Regeneration research, in which prominent scientists will debate where the field should be going to produce the most impact in the next decade.

We hope you will find the meeting in San Diego exciting and will register to attend. To do so please go to the Registration Tab in the 2008 Meetings section of our website. Register today and take advantage of the discount if you are a member of the society. If you are not yet a member, please consider signing up, sharing this discount, and joining us for an excellent meeting.

We look forward to seeing you on April 24-27 in San Diego.

Best regards,
Manuela Martins-Green and Paul Liu
Co-chairs of the Program Committee for the WHS 2008 Annual Meeting