ABSTRACT
The International Society for Bioengineering and the Skin, now 25 years of age, the brainchild of Ronald Marks and Harvey Blank, has passed through its adolescent phase in good health and is now poised to reap the fruits of adulthood. We now have a cornucopia of powerful instruments that can reveal the mysteries of skin in health and disease, all without touching the surface, a triumph of bioengineering creativity. Moreover, unlike traditional histological studies, which give a static picture at one point in time, ruining the site for further study, bioengineering techniques present a moving picture of sequential events in real time, a delight to watch and a gratifying experience for investigators whose daily work is generally pretty dull and dreary. These technical wonders were unthinkable at the end of my residency in 1950.
