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NEWS Passing of Judah Folkman, MD
I was lucky enough to spend time with Judah recently in Japan. Amongst a wealth of insights and anecdotes he told me that he had been amused by premature reports of his death, including one at a meeting where he had actually been present in the audience. Phoning his wife to reassure her that he had not yet died, she mentioned receiving several condolence phone calls that she'd answered with 'well if he's dead it must be recent, because the toilet seat is still up'. He was a friendly, insightful and inspirational man, always at the controversial frontier of science and maintaining an enthusiasm to push into the unknown with the desire to benefit humanity. We extend our sincere condolences to his wife, family and his multitude of friends around the world at their sad loss. Len Seymour, Jan 25th 2008. Advanced therapies: public call for expressions of interest as Commission appointees to the European Medicines Agency Committee for Advanced Therapies The European Commission has published on 10/1/2008 a public call for expressions of interest which relates to the appointment by the Commission of members and alternates representing clinicians and patients' associations at the Committee for Advanced Therapies of the European Medicines Agency (EMEA). The public call is available in all EU official languages: http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/pharmaceuticals/advtherapies/index.htm Expressions of interest should be notified to Nicolas Rossignol at the European Commission by e-mail to nicolas.rossignol@ec.europa.eu . The deadline for receipt of the notifications is 6.00 p.m. on Friday 14 March 2008. The Vector Directory commissioned by the Department of Health Published: 30 October 2007 The Vector Directory details UK, EU and US suppliers of the vectors commonly used in gene therapy, and gives guidance to researchers seeking to have vectors manufactured for clinical trials. It is intended to help researchers bring the advances in genetics more quickly to the patient's bedside. Gendicine - World's first commercialised gene therapy medicine for treatment of cancer. View the (Windows Media Viewer) news clip or the (Real Media) news clip - courtesy of ITN Source BSGT and the Australasian Gene Therapy Society (AGTS) Exchange Programme In September 2006 BSGT and AGTS ran a competition to identify a delegate who would be funded to attend the AGTS Conference, to be held April 18th-20th 2007 in Canberra. The competition was open to all BSGT members but priority was given to applicants who intended to develop collaborations with Australasian scientists and forge links between BSGT and AGTS. The competition was won by Dr Suzy Buckley of the Royal Free and University College Medical School who attended the AGTS conference and also took the opportunity to spend time in the laboratory of her collaborator Dr David Parsons working on transduction capability of the gp64 pseudotyped HIV vector. To read Suzy's report of her trip please click here. A similar competition is being run for AGTS members.
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The death this week of Judah
Folkman marks the passing of a leading light in tumour biology and therapy. He
was the force that identified vascularisation as central to tumour growth, and
inspired the concept of anti-vascular therapies as the Achilles' heel of
cancer. In the 1970s when he first proposed controlling tumour growth using
anti-vascular treatments he was met by disbelief and even ridicule by the
scientific community, which was not able to accept such a leap of insight.
Nevertheless Judah persevered and founded and directed the Vascular Biology
Programme at the Childrens' Hospital in Boston. During his long and productive
scientific and surgical career he was responsible for development of several
new anti vascular drugs and treatment strategies, many in increasing use today.
Some 1.2m people worldwide are now receiving anti-angiogenic therapies as a
result of his work.