Anne Galy, winner of the Biotherapy prize for her project "gene therapy in Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome" :

On 22 June, at the 8th annual conference of the "Société Francophone de Thérapie Cellulaire et Génique" (French-speaking Cellular and Gene Therapy Society) in Paris, Anne Galy, Généthon research director of the Inserm unit, has been presented the 2009 Biotherapy prize awarded by Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. For 12 years, this annual prize has been presented to a French researcher leading an innovative project in the fields of cellular therapy, gene therapy or immunotherapy.

Anne Galy has been with Généthon since 2002 and currently heads Inserm unit U951, a joint unit set up with the University of Evry, the EPHE and Généthon, and entitled Molecular immunology and innovative biotherapies. Her team aims to develop innovative treatments targeting the immune system in two ways: to control immune responses after gene transfer and provide gene therapy for hereditary immune dysfunctional diseases. In this context, she is developing a gene therapy project for Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome, a severe X-linked immune deficiency syndrome caused by mutation of the WAS gene. This therapy consists of taking haematopoietic cells from the patient, inserting the "normal" WAS gene using a lentiviral vector, before reinjecting these corrected cells into the patient. Conducted in close cooperation with Alain Fischer and Marina Cavazzana-Calvo's teams from the Necker Hospital in France and Adrian Thrasher's team from the Institute of Child Health in England, on the basis of preclinical work carried out partly with Tiget teams in Milan, this trial should begin in a few months time, after receiving authorisation from the health authorities with whom the dossiers were filed on 16 March 2009 for the English health authority (MHRA) and on 10 April 2009 for the French health authority (Afssaps). Généthon, a laboratory created and funded by AFM (French Muscular Dystrophy Association) through Telethon donations, will be the trial sponsor.