European Society of Gene Therapy (ESGT) Seventh Meeting. 26-28 November 1999, Munich, Germany.

: This meeting gave an excellent overview of the recent developments in gene therapy. Much research effort has focused on the improvement and de novo construction of gene vectors, on characterizing their mechanisms of action and on their interactions with, and in, living organisms. The continual improvements in understanding disease at a molecular level and the progress in cell biology, immunology and related fields have opened the way for novel gene therapy approaches. The gene therapeutic strategy has proven to be feasible and efficient in numerous preclinical (animal) models of a variety of diseases. On the other hand, applying this experience to humans has turned out to be difficult. Currently, the field is rapidly moving into clinical applications. No major limiting side effects have been observed in patients in the phase I and later stage trials presented. Nonetheless, years of preclinical and clinical research will be required before gene therapy can be considered a reliable and efficient therapeutic approach with broad applicability.