ESPCR blog

Message from Lionel Larue, President of ESPCR:

Professor Estela Medrano at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, died prematurely in a tragic car accident on Monday August 30th, 2010. It is a real loss for the community and for all her friends, which were numerous in our field. Our heart felt sorrows go out to her husband and family, but no verbal or written condolences can possibly do justice to the depth and sincerity of our feelings of sympathy.
All the best
Lionel Larue, Institut Curie, Orsay, France
President of ESPCR

Vitiligo Book, Edited by Mauro Picardo and Alain Taïeb

A new book on “Vitiligo” has been just published by Springer, 2010. The book is edited by Prof. Mauro Picardo (Vice-President of IFPCS and former President of ESPCR) and Prof. Alain Taïeb (Secretary of ESPCR and member of the IFPCS council). Most of the authors responsible for the different book chapters are also IFPCS members.

Extracted from Springer’s web page: “Vitiligo is one of the most common cutaneous disorders. Great numbers of affected patients suffer from the high stigmatizing impact of this disease. Up to now, clinical guidelines for the treatment of vitiligo were non-existent. In order to fill this void, this textbook defines and gives a complete overview of the disease, both regarding the classification of differential diagnosis as well as the treatment. Written by the most authoritative experts in the field, all therapy recommendations are based on new evidence-based guidelines. It includes case studies with illustrations before and after the treatment in order to demonstrate the treatment success. This textbook will be a valuable resource for all physicians who are seeing patients with this disease“.

Table of Contents:

Section I: Defining the Disease.- Section II: Understanding the Disease.- Pathophysiology Overview.- Generalized Vitiligo.- Genetic.- Environmental Factors.- In Vivo Data.- Animal Model.- In Vitro Approaches.- Oxidative Stress.- Immune/Inflammatory Aspects.- Cytokines and Growth Factors.- Proopiomelanochortin and Related Hormones in Vitiligo.- Segmental Vitiligo.- The Concept of Mosaicism Applied to SV.- Neural Hypothesis.- In Vivo Data.- In Vitro Data.- Editor’s Synthesis.- Section III: Therapy.- How to Manage the Patients: Overview.- Evidence Based Medicine.- Phototherapies.- Local Treatments.- Systemic Treatments.- Non Defined Treatments.- Surgical Therapies and Combined Therapies.- Camouflage: Practical Aspects.- Patient’s Perspective.- Editor’s Syntesis.- Conclusions.- Appendix.- Treatment Regimen (Phototherapies): Pratical Aspects.- Techinques for Grafting.- Index

ESPCR

The new ESPCR Society, “ESPCR AISBL“, has just established a brand new bank account where we will be processing all your membership payment requests. However, at the moment, unfortunately, we can’t accept payments by credit card. We will try to have this option operative as soon as possible. Therefore, currently, ESPCR AISBL can only accept payments by Bank Wire Transfer or by Cheque.

Payment through BANK WIRE TRANSFER using IBAN and BIC bank account codes is the preferred form of payment. Payment by Bank Wire Transfer is not surcharged. Payment by Cheque is surcharged with 15 Euros.

Deadline for receiving your application for 2010 ESPCR Membership is December 31st, 2009. We have established this early deadline to fulfill our compromises with the Publisher of PCMR, the scientitic journal associated to IFPCS, where ESPCR is part of the Federation. Please proceed to apply for 2010 ESPCR Membership following the provided indications in this web site.

If you have any question, please contact the ESPCR Treasurer by email: treasurer@espcr.org.

IFPCS

PCMR access through IFPCS web site

Members-Only Area of IFPCS WEB SITE

Registered IFPCS Members are entitled to access full online contents of the scientific journal Pigment Cell & Melanoma Research (PCMR), through the MEMBERS-ONLY area of the IFPCS web site. Exclusive access requires unique (personal) username and password combinations, available for each registered IFPCS member. These parameters can be easily requested to the system, which will send an automatic reminder to the email address associated to the corresponding registered IFPCS Member.

If you are a registered IFPCS Member and fail to access the MEMBERS-ONLY area of the IFPCS web site, please contact the IFPCS webmaster who will fix the problem and inform you what to do.

PASPCR 2009 Meeting

Updated information about the next PASPCR 2009 Meeting, to be held in Memphis (TN, USA), on September 4-7, 2009, organised by Prof. Andrzej Slominski, is available in this most updated flyer.

The topics of this meeting will include:

• Biochemistry, Chemistry, and Biophysics of Melanin Pigmentation
• Cell Biology of Melanin Synthesis
• Malignant Transformation of the Melanocyte and Melanoma Progression
• Cell Surface and Nuclear Receptors and Their Ligands
• Melanocyte Maturation/Differentiation
• Oxidative Responses in Melanocytes and Melanoma Cells
• Solar Radiation and the Pigmentary System

Confirmed invited speakers include:

Sergei Grando, MD, PhD (University of California Irvine)
F. Holick, MD, PhD (Boston University)
Lawrence Pfeffer, PhD (University of Tennessee)
Michael Kastan, MD, PhD (St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital)
Ralf Paus, MD (University of Lubeck)
Jack Arbiser, MD, PhD (Emory University)
Russel J. Reiter, Ph.D., Dr.h.c.mult. (University of Texas, San Antonio)
Edwin Blalock, PhD (University of Alabama)
Gregory Barsh, MD, PhD (Stanford University)
Andrzej Slominski, MD, PhD (University of Tennessee)
Dianna Johnson, PhD (University of Tennessee)

official email address of this meeting: info@paspcr2009.org

official web page address of this meeting: http://www.paspcr2009.org

PCMR OCtober 2008 issue

A new issue (October 2008) of the scientific journal Pigment Cell and Melanoma Research has been published and released. Its contents include these topics and manuscripts.

The next scheduled (XXIth) IPCC meeting will be held in Bordeaux (France) in 2011, organised by Prof. Alain Taïeb. The corresponding unique IPCC WEB site and IPCC email address will be announced soon.