June 2002

BRITISH SOCIETY FOR INVESTIGATIVE DERMATOLOGY

(Registered Charity No. 326739)

Dear Colleague,

1. BSID Annual Meeting 2002
The Norwich meeting was very successful. The introduction of an educational session appears to have been well received and we are planning to retain this for 2003. 30 oral and 36 posters were accepted for presentation, a reduction of thirteen compared to last year. Greater prominence was given to the posters and we are planning to maintain this in 2003. The number of pre-registered delegates was 153 in total (including 15 registered for Skin Club only, and 6 for the British Photodermatology Group only 6) compared to 170 in 2001 (147 for BSID plus 24 for British Contact Dermatology Group/Skin Club). I would like to thank Clive Grattan for the time and effort he put into organising the meeting.

Prize winners
BSID Young Investigator Award, Sponsored by Fujisawa
Rachel Watson, Salford. "Fibrillin-rich microfibrils are reduced following acute UV-B irradiation".
Oral Presentation, Unilever, 1st prize
Colin Veal, Leicester. "High resolution genomic SNP based typing characterises the psors1 locus in chronic plaque psoriasis".
Oral Presentation, Unilever, 2nd prize
Eleanor Willis, Southampton. "Investigations into the mechanisms by which nedocromil sodium inhibits the histamine-induced itch and flare response in human skin in vivo".
Poster presentation, Leo Pharmaceuticals, 1st prize
Helen Kemp, Sheffield. "The melanin-concentrating hormone receptor 1: a novel autoantigen in vitiligo identified using phage-display technology".
Poster presentation, 2nd prize
Helen Burrell, Liverpool. "Laser capture microdissection of paraffin-fixed skin sections and subsequent mRNA analysis".
Registrar's Prize for Best Oral Presentation, Sponsored by Novartis
Peter Baldwin, Cambridge. "Trial of vaccination with recombinant vaccinia virus expressing HPV 16 E6 and E7 for high grade vulval intraepithelial neoplasia". This will allow him to present his work at the BAD annual meeting in Edinburgh in July.

Travel bursaries
(i) Stiefel - Samantha Robinson, Southampton.
(ii) Galderma - Kim Krishnan, University of Newcastle upon Tyne.
(iii) 3M - Karen Waterston, University of Edinburgh.

2. BSID Meeting 2003 - Southampton
The next annual meeting will be held in Southampton. Our local organisers are Peter Friedmann and Eugene Healy. We have arranged the meeting at the University of Southampton to run from Monday 7 to Wednesday 9 April 2003. The meeting will start Monday morning with affiliated meetings of the British Contact Dermatology Group and British Photodermatology Group. On Monday afternoon there will be a meeting of the Skin Club on "the mechanisms underlying therapeutics of skin disorders", which will be followed by an evening Educational Session (aimed at clinical and non-clinical trainees) also centred around therapeutics. The main BSID meeting will start on the Tuesday and run until Wednesday lunchtime. Our overseas guest speaker will be Gary Fisher from Ann Arbor, USA, who will speak about UV signalling pathways.
We have moved the abstract deadline this year to 7 December 2002. There will be a limited availability of late breaking slots for poster presentation only with a deadline in February 2003. Further details will follow in the September newsletter.
The numbers of travel bursaries (£150) awarded to clinical and non-clinical trainees presenting work at the meeting will be increased to ten. There will be reduced subscription rates for medical students and non-clinical PhD students.
We will continue with our approach of encouraging presentations from a broad field of dermatological and skin related research and wish to actively encourage the submission and presentation of clinical and epidemiological research in addition to the traditional laboratory-based format.

3. New Committee Members
Jonathan Barker completed his second term of office and stood down from the committee. We are very grateful to Jonathan for all his hard work and for his contribution to the committee. Marie Cumberbatch completed her first three year term of office and stood for re-election.
Sally Ibbotson and Marie Cumberbatch were elected onto the committee at the AGM in Norwich.

4. Chairman Elect
Eugene Healy (Southampton) was elected by the committee as the chairman elect. Eugene will formally take over as chairman after the AGM in Southampton although Eugene will be playing an increasing role over the next year, particularly as one of the local organisers in Southampton!

5. Skin Club
Following an annual meeting of the Skin Club held on 25 March 2002, it was proposed that the Skin Club will effectively merge with the BSID over the next year and this was discussed at the BSID AGM. David Garrod, chairman of the Skin Club, is planning to circulate these proposals to the full Skin Club membership. In practice, it is proposed that during the change-over period members of the Skin Club committee (Liz Rugg/Paul Bowden) will be co-opted on to the BSID committee and will help organise the BSID/Skin Club meeting in Southampton in 2003. Thereafter, one of the BSID committee members will take on this role. The importance of maintaining a high profile for non-clinical science was emphasised.

6. Website
The BSID website should be functional by August 2002.

Best wishes.
Yours sincerely,

Nick J. Reynolds
Chairman