PRESIDENT'S LETTER

The British Society for Gene Therapy was established in 2003 to encourage this innovative research field towards fulfilling its exciting clinical potential. As with many new scientific fields, early development of gene therapy has been plagued with hyper-expectation and disappointment, in roughly equal measure, and a central aim of BSGT is to try and stabilise the situation to move it steadily forward towards realistic application. In particular we seek to:

• promote high quality gene therapy science. So far we did this mainly through the annual conference, where our focus on low budget residential venues (and lots of free wine) to maximise student participation has been very popular. The recent meeting at the Heriot_Watt University, Edinburgh was a lot of fun as well as a forum for good science. We are clearly helping to build a scientific community in our field in the UK, and the increased networking, sharing of resources etc is very good for scientific progress. In particular the gene therapy Helpline (details on the home page) is an excellent and cost effective resource for scientists to accelerate progress by circulating requests and questions to laboratories throughout the country.

• enhance clinical translation of promising approaches. This is a real challenge, particularly in light of the regulatory requirements now in place, but we are helping design a 'roadmap' to explain the various stages, and simultaneously pursuing several initiatives to increase the availability of cGMP vectors for academic-led clinical trials.

• increase public awareness of the field. I thought this would be the most difficult aspect, but our annual 'Journeys in the Genetic Jungle' public awareness days show just how much the public want to understand what gene therapy is all about. We must do this more often, to give the public a chance to form their own judgements about us, and also to encourage more young people to consider careers in science. Best of all, it's great fun!

In the near future we will be expanding our public awareness programme including launching a section of the website introducing gene therapy to non-scientists, commencing exchange programmes with other national societies, and starting an active programme of co-hosting scientific symposia with other scientific societies to maximise application of our ideas across several disciplines. Please let us know if you'd like to take part in any of these initiatives - we really need your help.

Finally, the next annual conference will be held at Royal Holloway, University of London, 21st-23rd April 2009.

Len Seymour