NFP37 SOMATIC GENE THERAPY ANNUAL MEETING October 6, 2000 «Yin-Yang between industry and academia in gene transfer research»

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On the linked pages you will find:

• the chronological program (with links to the abstracts)
• the message 2000 of the director
• the abstracts
• the addresses of invited speakers
• the addresses of registered attendees
• highligts and impressions

The fourth annual meeting was held , as tradition wants, in Fribourg. In spite of being a one-day meeting we received a total of 41 abstracts, 4 thereof from guest teams. It was also reassuring to receive 165 registrations, which is an absolute record for the one-day nfp37 meetings. In total we counted 194 people at 10 am, which is a very encouraging success. In comparison, the 2-days meeting 1999 where investigators of Phase A and B coincided, counted 50 abstracts (see Meeting1999 page for details) and 170 official registrants. In simple words, this means to me that the interest in gene therapy is all but dwindling!

So, thank to everybody for keeping your attention to this important biomedical field!!!

Here the impressions that I collected at the meeting or that were recently returned to my mail box:

• The 5 min poster advertisements have been proving their validity. For the first time, it happened to me that instead of accumulating delay we actually gained schedule-time. Also our illustrious guest-speakers were unanimously impressed by the professionality and usefulness of these short communications.
• We have continued with the tradition to give a podium also for guest abstracts and I hope that this will encourage future participations of program-external contributors to our annual meeting.
• The plenary lecturers Felgner, Kovesdi and Caskey have not disappointed the audience. On the contrary they maintained the necessary pathos and tought us many important and updated principles. Their talks went as requested beyond the mere scientific data and recounted the differences between the private and the public research sector. This might have conveyed a clearer idea about the 'yin-yang' between industry and academia. Thank you Phil, Imi and Tom for sharing your thoughts with us!
• I hope sincerely that the attendees were given the clear and loud message that the the final meeting will be October 3,4,5, 2001 and that NFP37 program terminates as december 31, 2001. Also, I believe that some of the attendees liked the idea of trying to capitalise on the network that has been forming during the activity of this program. So, I am sure. the intent to found a national Association dedicated to Molecular Therapy may make some mileage.

We thank the following institutions/individuals
for their contribution to this year's success:

• The invited speakers : Philip Felgner, Imre Kovesdi, Tom Caskey
• The Company Frimorfo (for sponsoring)
• The Department of Chemistry (for the lecture and poster halls)
• The School of Engineering (for reserving lunch space)
• The Botanical Garden (for floreal decorations)
• The Ruscolab secretariate: T. Haeberlin, D. Pedrioli (for precious assistance)
• The projectionists: Ph. Krebs, S. Brenz, A. Genilloud (for the excellent run)
• The camera woman Barbara Huse (for documentation)
  

Selected videoclips will be available soon.

Letter of intent for a Swiss Association for Molecular Therapy SAMT
Sandro Rusconi, director NFP37 somatic gene therapy, September 2000

Premise: why an initiative from the NFP37?

The Swiss National Research Program 37 (NFP37) entitled 'somatic gene therapy' is entering its fifth and last year of operations. We have sponsored the research of about 30 teams and have organised annual meetings each gathering over 200 people who could listen to outstanding international speakers and stimulating internal progress reports. We have a very active WEB site which is annually visited by thousands of interested people and we have built a network of collaborations and friendship that has consolidated the interaction between the academic and the clinical world. Now the NFP37 Program will finish by the end of 2001, but besides having helped some teams to fly by their own, it should fulfil one of the most important missions: to possibly leave behind a solid trace of its existence. As scientific director I am responsible for this to be concretised, and I thought that the best we could do to capitalise on the existing network would be to found an association that should regroup the representative efforts in molecular therapy in Switzerland.

Goals of the SAMT (provisory name):

• The goals of the association, which is non-profit oriented and is tentatively called Swiss Association for Molecular Therapy (SAMT), could be:
• a) promote cross-awareness of the molecular therapy teams by sponsoring national and international workshops and meetings.
• b) promote the coordination of efforts by keeping an internet survey or registry of the past and present efforts
• c) promote the development of the field by sponsoring dedicated educational events (special lecture series, training for junior fellows, travel to congresses)
• d) Foster relationships with sister organisations such as the ESGT and the ASGT by implementing joint efforts (meetings and other events).
• e) Promote public understanding and public acceptance of molecular therapy by all the modern communication means and by offering contacts with national and international decisional instances
• f) furter goals or changes may be defined by the steering committee and by the founding assembly

Members of the SAMT

The SAMT would welcome members (from PhD students to the highest degrees of seniority) from the medical, academic and industrial field, with common interests in any form of macro-molecular therapy; at the level of fundamental, applied or clinical research.

The SAMT should be affiliated into one of the existing dedicated academies (SANW or SAMW) and possibly also to the USGEB.

Financing

The financing should be sustained partly by membership fees (calculated 400-600 members to give 15 to 20 Kfr per year), by one or two industrial sponsors (for a total of nx10 Kfr/yr) and possibly also by the patronage of the Academies. The secretariate and committee work should be done on a militia style, that is practically free of charge, except for the crude running costs (4-6 Kfr/yr).

A realistic and durable perspective

We have contacted several prominent gene therapists in Switzerland and they agree that this is an idea that can make a good mileage, specially if the additional financing by the private sector can be secured. The positive attitude indicates that it should not be too difficult to find people for a steering committee. The Swiss National Academy of Medical sciences (SAMW) and of Natural Sciences (SANW) have been contacted, and their fee-back is expected for soon. Also the European Society for Gene Therapy (ESGT) sees this as an excellent initiative and would welcome our association as a special section of the ESGT. A special page describing the progress of this project and collecting the comments of the interessees will be opened nextly.

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