|
|
       
|
Tuomas Rissanen
AMERICAN SOCIETY OF GENE THERAPY I participated in the meeting with a poster called "Effects of Intramuscular Adenovirus-Mediated VEGF Gene Transfer to Rabbit Ischemic Hindlimb with Special Reference to Endogenous VEGF and VEGFR-2 Expression in Ischemic Human and Rabbit Skeletal Muscle". The poster dealt with the therapeutic effects and adverse effects of adenovirus mediated vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) gene transfer in the rabbit model of peripheral ischemia. In addition, endogenous VEGF gene expression in hypoxic and ischemic human and rabbit skeletal muscle was studied. Many interested collegues visited my poster and I had compelling discussions with a number of people about VEGF and its biology. In this year’s ASGT meeting there were a lot more presentations on my own research field (vascular gene therapy and especially therapeutic angiogenesis in ischemic skeletal muscle) than in the ESGT meeting in Stockholm, September 2000. Apparently, also in this field good animal studies and cutting-edge science is predominantly done in the US. However, compared to other gene therapy applications such as cancer gene therapy, fewer people seem to be interested in the gene therapy for therapeutic angiogenesis. The biggest problem of vascular gene therapy and perhaps the whole gene therapy research, the lack of double-blinded randomized clinical studies, was obvious during the meeting. Often a hypothesis was preferred in discussions instead of a solid conclusion drawn from the results. Especially, in the workshops and corporate symposia the invited professors spoke too much in favor of pharmaceutical companies, not in favor of good science. Abstracts, both oral presentations and posters, were generally well done and presented, although the quality of abstracts was quite diverse - you never completely undestand Chinese or French accent, do you? In my opinion the best invited speaker was Dr. Douglas Losordo and his realistic presentation on clinical trials of therapeutic angiogenesis in a corporate symposium sponsored by Aventis (2nd of June). Among the poster presentations the poster by Dr. Matthew Springer distinguished. He showed some encouraging results about VEGF inducing not only endothelial cells but also pericytes in a mouse model. In this work myoblasts were isolated, transfected permanently with retrovirus encoding VEGF and returned back to the same animal. The study showed that although VEGF is generally believed to be an endothelial cell spesific growth factor, it can probably indirectly affect also other cell types. This is very important considering the potential clinical benefit of VEGF gene therapy in ischemic disorders. Taken together, the ASGT 2001 meeting was very educative, especially because it was the first "big" meeting that I participated, and it was also my first visit to the US. Perhaps the best in the meeting was the many contacts to collegues I had during the breaks and at the posters. I wish to thank Finnish Gene Therapy Society for the grant and the generous sponsors Valentis, Schering AG and Novartis Finland that made this possible. Tuomas Rissanen |