Jeffrey Chamberlain, PhD, on Bringing Back the Focus to Basic Research for ASGCT 2024
The McCaw Endowed Chair of Muscular Dystrophy at University of Washington gave a background on ASGCT, its founding, and how far the field has come since.
“There are so many clinical gene therapies, so many approved gene therapies, and cell therapies, and RNA therapies, that it's come to dominate the meeting a little bit. So, one of the things we decided to do is take a tiny step backwards, and not forget about the basic research that got us to where we are today.”
The American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy (ASGCT) is set to hold its 27th Annual Meeting on May 7-11, in Baltimore, Maryland. The meeting brings together researchers, clinicians, academic centers, regulatory agencies, and industry involved in gene and cell therapy work to share their work and generate collaborative discussions in the field. ASGCT expects over 8000 attendees, setting up this year’s meeting to be the biggest yet.
CGTLive® spoke with Jeffrey Chamberlain, PhD, Professor, Neurology and Medical Genetics, and Adjunct Professor, Biochemistry, and McCaw Endowed Chair, Muscular Dystrophy, University of Washington, who has served as ASGCT’s president for 2023-2024, to learn more about the upcoming meeting and the progress of gene and cell therapy in recent years. He shared some background on the ASGCT and how it was founded by George Stamatoyannopoulos to encourage gene therapy research in 1996. He talked about how far the field has come since. He also stressed that this year’s meeting will have a focus on returning to basic science and genetics to better understand and be able to develop treatments for genetic diseases, including translational research studies. The meeting also aims to better highlight pivotal basic science and the researchers behind it.
