Dear colleagues,

I hope that you and your families are well! Who could have imagined when meeting at the Fondation René Touraine (FRT) Science Day in autumn 2019, that a nightmare, like the one we have experienced this past year, would ever happen. Of course, all our hospitals had a pandemic plan, detailing what has to be done when a pandemic strike, but few read these plans and few had seriously considered that such a thing could happen during our lifetime. No wonder that we all, including our politicians, were caught off guard when SARS-CoV-2 was steadily spreading all over the world in early spring 2020. Now, more than one year later, the pessimists rather than the optimists were proven right – the virus has not gone away and we are dragging along from wave to wave from lockdown to lockdown. However, on the positive side, in unprecedented short time, several vaccines against this nasty virus have been designed, tested and made available for the roll-out of vaccination campaigns worldwide. Of course, for both logistic reasons and politics it will take some time until the entire world population will be vaccinated, but these vaccines are the literal bright lights at the end of the tunnel. Besides its impact on the health of so many people and on the economy, SARS-CoV-2 had and has the potential to disrupt established networks of scientific cooperation and certainly makes it more difficult to create new ones. We all have learned to interact via video-sessions and visit virtual congresses – but it’s not the same as standing in the hallways of a conference and, over a coffee, discussing personal life and professional ideas with colleagues.

Also the Rene Touraine Foundation hat to forgo its traditional Science Day in 2020 which for 27 years has taken place in the ”Ministry of Research” and after in the “Musée des Moulages” in the ”Hôpital Saint-Louis”. Notwithstanding, this year we will start over and hold the FRT Science Day at the “Hôpital Necker-Enfants malades” in the Imagine Institute. We plan to have it as a “hybrid” meeting – i.e. both with participants who will be physically present and others who will join via videoconference. Another modification concerns the program. This year, not a skin cell or structural element of the skin will be at the center stage of the conference, but the COVID pandemic and its relevance for dermatologists and skin researchers. Furthermore, new developments in the field of inflammatory skin diseases will be presented and discussed. Phyllis Spuls the president of SPIN (Skin Inflammation & Psoriasis international Network – another action of the FRT) - has put together the exciting program!

We are looking forward to welcoming you, either personally or on screen, at our Science Day on November 19 th 2021!

Stay healthy and stay safe!

Erwin Tschachler