June 13 – June 15, 2020
Fukuoka, Japan
The first year of Japan’s newest era, Reiwa, marks thirty years since the world’s first gene therapy trial on ADA deficiency was performed in the United States in May 1989 and 25 years since the JSGT (predecessor of the JSGCT) was established. Gene therapy, which was initially launched to great fanfare, did not demonstrate the desired clinical results and had been plagued by a series of side effects since 1999, including a death at the University of Pennsylvania and the onset of leukemia in a patient with X-linked SCID, and subsequently triggered a slide into a long period of hardship.