Marcel F. Jonkman is professor and chair of the department of Dermatology
at the University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG). Since 1992 he runs the Center
for Blistering Diseases at the University, which is the only expertise
center for autoimmune bullous diseases, epidermolysis bullosa, and other skin
fragility disorders in the Netherlands. The center has its own laboratory for
research and immunodiagnosis of
blistering diseases. It provides weekly clinical services for patients with
blistering diseases. Hundreds of patients with an autoimmune bullous disease from
all over the country (16.920.510 inhabitants, 2015) have visited the center in all
these years.
The textbook is the effort
of the senior staff and PhD’s in Groningen who wrote this ‘all-Groningen book’.
The senior staff has gained years of experience in diagnosis and management of autoimmune
bullous diseases, and reported their scientific findings in many publications.
The annual Course on Blister Diseases in Groningen, that runs since the year
2000, provided much of the didactic structure used in this book. The
photographers Siep Noorman and PietToonder signed for the excellent medical photographs
that were selected from a digital image database with more than 250,000 images
of dermatological disease.