Edinburgh2021

The ESGCT & BSGCT Collaborative Congress is postponed to October 2022

Update: September 2020

After much discussion and deliberation, the difficult decision has been made to further postpone the ESGCT/BSGCT Collaborative Congress in Edinburgh.

Given the current uncertainty regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, the decision has been taken primarily based on the responsibility for our Congress delegates. By taking this decision now, it is hoped that any inconvenience will be minimised regarding logistics, travel and accommodation bookings, preparing talks and all the other planning connected with the event. We hope that anyone who was planning to submit abstracts for consideration will appreciate the reasons for taking this decision now.

The Congress, which had originally been rescheduled to January 2021, is being further postponed to October 2022. Both societies are planning other activities and initiatives in the meantime.

We are very grateful for your patience and understanding during this uncertain time. Society news and updates are communicated as soon as possible via our website, mailing list, Facebook and Twitter pages. To ensure you receive these notifications, please check “My Communication Preferences” in your online account; the option for “Can we send you BSGCT announcements” needs to be set to “Yes“.

News

Switching Up T Cell Therapies

With the huge effort that’s currently being spent developing more resistant T cell therapies with new targets and increased efficacy against solid tumours, it’s easy to overlook the toxicity concerns and the innovative ways scientists are tackling them.

Could It Be A One-Stop Solution For The Most Common Cause Of Irreversible Blindness?

Vered Smith is our 2020 Science Writing Competition winner with her article about glaucoma.

Rebuilding the brain with stem cells: is it a no-brainer?

Anitta Rose Chacko is our 2020 Science Writing Competition runner-up with her article about Parkinson's disease.

The Churchillian dilemma of Gene Editing

Felicity Crawshay-Williams is our 2020 Science Writing Competition runner-up with her article about the genetic code.

Skin; Lets Break It Down

Christopher Smith receives a special mention for our 2020 Science Writing Competition with his poem about the SGPL1 gene.

Programmed to kill: Synthetic virology to attack cancer

Carefully modified viruses are becoming major new drugs in the battle against cancer.

Gene-loaded sutures to promote tendon healing

Injuries to tendons, the tissue that links muscle to bone, are commonly seen in the clinic yet few strategies exist to improve upon slow and largely poor tendon healing standards.

3D Printing of Personalized Cardiac Patches and Hearts

Tissue engineering for cardiac repair has reached an advanced stage and engineered constructs are starting to be approved for first-in-human trials.

Retirement of Prof George Dickson, a founder of British Society for Gene and Cell Therapy

The British Society for Gene Therapy, as BSGCT was originally named, was founded seventeen years ago by a number of pioneers in the field including Prof George Dickson.

The origin of your noggin

‘Where do you get your brains from?!’

Human Germline Editing – What’s the big deal?

In November 2018, He Jiankui, gave a presentation at the second international summit on Human Genome Editing.

One image at a time: using cryoEM to unpick how viruses infect cells

Over the last few years a wave of virus-based therapies has progressed through late stage clinical evaluation and to (or near to) the market place.

A final chance to breathe: Could gene therapy cure cystic fibrosis lung disease?

For decades, scientists and doctors have worked tirelessly towards developing effective treatments for CF.

Cracking the enthesis code

More than three quarters of shoulder repair surgeries fail while long-term disabilities occurring as a direct consequence of sports-related injuries, such as pain and osteoporosis, remain a huge burden (Apostolakos et al, 2014).

Overcoming the disconnection

We all have a universe inside our head. A hundred billion neurons making connections with one another, constantly firing and passing messages from our brain, down the spinal cord, and to every part of our body.

Putting the dopamine back in Parkinson’s

One in 37 people in the UK are diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease (PD) during their lifetime (Parkinson’s UK, 2018).

Rare is not so rare

In the disease surfactant protein B deficiency, a certain protein called surfactant protein B is missing in the lung of new-born babies.

CRISPR-engineered T cells in patients with refractory cancer

A recent paper from Carl June’s lab published in the journal Science¹ described results of a University of Pennsylvania clinical trial that administered in three patients T-cells engineered to target cancer cells using a virus whilst simultaneously engineered using CRISPR to stop expression of 3 genes.

Precision correction of pathogenic mutations using prime editing technology

A broad range of genome editing tools are currently available enabling targeted scission at a predetermined DNA locus.