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Hanna Puhakka
Annual Meeting of American Society of Gene Therapy The fourth annual meeting of AMERICAN SOCIETY OF GENE THERAPY (ASGT) was held in Seattle (WA, USA) 30.5. - 3.6.2001. Many interesting sessions, workshops, poster presentations and scientific symposia were presented on molecular medicine and gene therapy. I participated the meeting with oral presentation titled (abstract number 838) A MMP-targeted adenovirus encoding tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase-1 (TIMP-1) with altered virus tropism reduces restenosis after intravascular gene transfer. The most important topics of gene therapy were covered by the lectures. The topics I found mainly intresting were cardiovascular diseases, disorders and cardiovascular gene therapy. For example Victor Dzau showed promising results that NOS gene transfer inhibits restenosis after angioplasty. They had used arterial stent model with mini pigs. Furthermore Dzau et al. have developed a rat model for myocardial protection in which the area at risk is the apex of the heart. First they introduced the gene (they used ecSOD), waited 8 weeks and then the damage was made. As a result 80% of ischemia were protected by this pre-treatment. Hammond et al. have studied the clinical treatment of myocardial ischemia by gene transfer. They made angiogenic gene therapy trial in which they made intracoronary delivery of adenovirus enconding FGF4. They examined safety aspects and indentified doses. As a result they found that there were no acute problems during intracoronary delivery and that there were 87% extraction of adenovirus by heart. No adenovirus was found in urine or semen. Targeted gene therapy was interesting topic for me because my study was about it. I found out that Restel et al. had made a study about in vivo targeted gene delivery. They had used the same mmp-targeting peptide as I had in my study. They developed an in vivo selection system in which phage capable of selective homing to different tissues are recovered from a phage display peptide library following intravenous administration. Using this strategy, they isolated several organ and tumor-homing peptides. They showed that phage displaying these peptides can be used to achieve targeted delivery of a reporter gene to tumors in vivo after systemic administration. As a summary the meeting was very informative and instructive. I got a lot of experience on "how to give a speech in a big conference" and many new ideas arose when talking with other researchers. And moreover I found that the gene therapy research made in Finland is very highly appreciated abroad. I thank warmly the Society for giving me this opportunity to experience the ASGT meeting. Hanna Puhakka |