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Hannele Uusitalo
AMERICAN SOCIETY OF GENE THERAPY The 4th ASGT meeting was held in Seattle, Washington, USA, May 30 - June 3, 2001. Over 2000 attendees took part in the Annual Meeting and 1156 scientific abstracts were presented during the Meeting. I had a privilege to take part in the Meeting with the help of a traveling-grant obtained from the Finnish Gene Therapy Society. I presented in the Meeting data from my PhD Thesis in a poster titled: "Adenovirus-mediated BMP-2 gene therapy enhances osteogenesis and chondrogenesis in the mouse". The latest research results in the broad field of gene therapy were presented covering the development of the viral and nonviral gene transfer vectors, tissue-targeted gene therapy and regulated gene expression, animal disease models as well as news about on-going gene therapy-studies on humans at the pre-clinical and clinical phases. The meeting was well organized. The schedule was very demanding in the Meeting; the sessions started early in the morning and lasted till night, but were always in time. The Meeting schedule was built around the special plenary lectures presented every morning, following concurrent scientific symposia, simultaneous oral abstract session and poster session as well as corporate symposia late in the evening. All the plenary lectures were of the highest scientific quality. I attended all these lectures, which included such topics as "Human genome project, Stem cell biology, Proteomics etc", and I found them very useful to get a comprehensive overview of the most recent advances and challenges in the modern medicine. The most interesting scientific symposia in personal point of view was the "Gene therapy in musculoskeletal disorders", which was presented for the first time and fulfilled my expectations with fascinating new data on the treatment of muscular dystrophies, arthritis and bone disorders with different approaches gene therapy has to offer. In the oral abstract sessions, several interesting studies were presented on topics related to my own research. There were reports about successful use of adenovirus vectors for efficient gene transfer to bone defects to induce bone formation as well as very fascinating studies on treatment of arthritis of different etiology with efficient gene therapy. Especially interesting was a study (Abstract No. 805), where the mechanism for the antiarthritic effect of local gene therapy (direct adenovirus-mediated anti-cytokine delivery into the joint) both on the treated and untreated, contralateral joint was studied. This effect was suggested to result from the trafficking of antigen presenting cells (APCs) from the treated to untreated joint. It was shown that the APCs were not required to be genetically modified, since use of ex vivo approach, where genetically modified fibroblasts were delivered intra-articularly, also resulted to the antiarthritic effect on contralateral joint. Thus it was suggested that intra-articular expression of anti-cytokines were able to modify the function of APCs, that in turn, are able to modulate the immune response in the contralateral joint. I found the other sessions (the ones not related to musculoskeletal diseases) on different aspects (vector development, different diseases etc.) of gene therapy very useful to get a more comprehensive overview on rapidly expanding field of modern gene therapy. The meeting also provided a good place to discuss various general issues as well as those more specifically related to my own studies, and offered plenty of chances to make new contacts with scientists from Finland and other countries. I also found it motivating that other people found my own studies interesting and thus, I can say honestly that the meeting provided me with lot of enthusiasm for the future studies with the gene therapy. I thank the Finnish Gene Therapy Society for providing me financial support to attend the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Gene Therapy in Seattle and I strongly recommend the future Annual Meetings for other young scientists interested in gene therapy. Hannele Uusitalo |