Dear ASGCT Members and Colleagues:

The ASGCT 13th Annual Meeting was a meeting of revitalization for the Society and the field. For the first time since 2004, ASGCT returned to Washington, DC for our Annual Meeting and hosted a pre-meeting Clinical Trials Training Course. The Course was presented to a standing-room only crowd and dealt with the challenges of bringing novel gene and cell therapies to the clinic. If you missed the Course, the slides are now available on the ASGCT website.

As the Annual Meeting progressed through the four days of programming, there was a renewed sense of excitement. The overall quality of the meeting and the sessions was excellent and this is a credit to the hard work of so many individuals including the program committee, the education committee and all the Society's committees in their planning and foresight in selection of topics and speakers. If you were unable to attend the meeting, be sure to check out the summaries available later in this newsletter. You can also download the 2010 Education Session summaries on the ASGCT website.

As we begin planning for the 2011 Annual Meeting in Seattle we welcome your input and feedback. Also, in addition to planning for annual meetings, all of our committees can play vital roles in enabling member input to strengthen the society as a whole. I want to encourage every member to consider this and let us know on which committees you may be interested in serving.

As I prepare for my year as President, I have many exciting initiatives to carry into the next year. The Society will be following up on the NIH visits Ken Cornetta and I made in the winter (to view the recent letter ASGCT received from Dr. Francis Collins, click here). The Society will also be co-sponsoring an FDA workshop on gene and cell therapy pediatric clinical trials, engaging in an extensive strategic planning initiative (keep an eye out for the many member surveys to come in the near future), continuing efforts to revamp the patient resources section of our website, while also preparing for another outstanding Annual Meeting in Seattle, Washington next May.

I look forward to a busy and productive year as President of the Society. Stay tuned for more updates on the many initiatives currently in the works!

Sincerely,

Barrie Carter, PhD
ASGCT President