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GENE THERAPY – The Future of
Medicine? At WVRC, February 26th
I’m sure many of you are as
intrigued as I am about what is really in that bottle that SEAN McMILLAN
carries all the time. In leading the Pledge, he did put it down, but
it’s still a mystery. Does anyone know? Anyway, we went on to the song
from there, with PP STEVE DAY and GREGG ELLIOTT taking us through God
Bless America – my only problem here being that the key was a trifle
low, at least for some of us. PP MIKE NEWMAN came forward with some
thoughtful comments about this season of the year. MARK BLOCK told MIKE
that Yom Kippur is the Jewish equivalent of our Lenten period, a time of
atonement, reflecting on our constant need for forgiveness.
MIKE pointed out that Rotary
provides an umbrella for all our diverse beliefs – and we should be
thankful that this is so. Thank you, MIKE.
PP JIM COLLINS was honored to be
asked to talk about BILL BLOOMFIELD, who passed away earlier this week.
JIM has known BILL for a long time, and he was able to tell us of some
of BILL’S many interests and activities. JIM mentioned that he and BILL
share a locker at Los Angeles Country Club, and then commented on
BILL’S, long career as a pilot. He noted that BILL played a mean game
of tennis – the last time they played, BILL won! BILL and PEGGY are
long-time members of Westwood Village United Methodist Church, and BILL
has been a member of WVRC for almost forty years. He was an early
crusader against smoking – we have all seen his billboard on Santa
Monica Blvd – and he was very instrumental in our Club becoming a
no-smoking Club. In 1947 he and Peggy started a business, renting
washers and dryers to apartments, and today, Web Service Company is the
national leader in this activity. BILL, we will all miss you. And Thank
You, JIM for your very personal historical recap. Note – the Memorial
Service for BILL will be this Sunday, the 29th, 2:30 pm at
Westwood United Methodist Church.
SANDY SANDERSON could find no
Visiting Rotarians, but SUSAN ALLEN brought Yoshio Umezawa, our former
Ambassadorial Scholar who is pursuing her PhD at UCLA.
PP HOWIE HENKES had three guests
of the Club, Capt. Clay Powell, who is the Patrol Captain for the
Westside, Dara Pettinato, wife of our honoree, and Officer 3 Frank
Pettinato. PP RON LYSTER, Chair of our upcoming 75th
Anniversary event, spoke briefly about how we are doing – and urged us
to get off the dime and send in those reservations. It will truly be a
spectacular event – don’t miss it (and note that you will be billed for
one ticket, whether you attend or not!) Since he was already up there,
Pres. PETER called on PP RON’S two partners, PP STEVE SCHERER and CHRIS
BRADFORD for a further report on the new motorcycle. PETER began this
with what might have been a somewhat staged photo showing RON at a very
early age (maybe 3 or 4) getting his first ticket from an officer of the
law (the giveaway was that the photo was in color…). We were reminded
that PP RON founded the Fellowship of Motorcycling Rotarians, which now
has over 2000 members worldwide. And I can vouch for the fact that his
until-recently motorcycle, a Harley Davidson, cost $13K when purchased
about a dozen years ago. (Ask me how I know this, OK?) It’s for sale
now at $9.5K – which says that cycles apparently hold their value pretty
well. The new machine, a Honda VTX, is an 1800cc, liquid cooled, fuel
injected, five speed, and shaft driven ‘rocket ship’, and if that
doesn’t impress you, Pres. PETER pointed out that this makes the Honda
more powerful than his daughter’s BMW 318i. All of this ended up just
costing PP RON a hundred bucks – seems to YOE that the fine doesn’t fit
the crime!
It was now time for the auction of
the pair of tickets to the Disney Concert Hall, donated by SALLY
PHILLIPS. The pre-set opening bid was $200 for the pair of tickets, and
PDG ANDY ANDERSON, who could not be present, asked PP HOWIE HENKES to
bid for him. So we started at $200, and ELLIOTT TURNER stepped up with
$250 – this, after a bit of maneuvering about what the minimum amount of
increase could be – and that seemed to be the top bid. But ANDY, in the
person of HOWIE, came up with $300 – and that was the final price!
Again, SALLY, thanks for the tickets – the ANDERSON’S will enjoy them,
I’m sure.
Hobby Day is next week, and LEE
DUNAYER gave us an update. Besides PP RON’S bike, PP ERIC LOBERG will
have his MG in the Parking Lot, and other exhibitors include DAN PRICE,
DICK LIVERMORE, PP JIM DOWNIE, CHRIS BRADFORD, and MICHAEL GINTZ, with
SHANE WAARBROEK talking about his hobby, along with SLOSS VIAU. PDG
ANDY ANDERSON will be making hors d’oeuvres! It will be fun – and
informative. Don’t be late!
Next, an Introduction prior to an
Introduction – who joined WVRC in November 1952, thus having been a
member for 52 years, was President in 1964-65, but HOWIE HENKES! HOWIE
then formally presented the Police Officer of the Year Award to Officer
3 Frank Pettinato. These annual awards are funded by a donation from
GEORGE SWARTZ, a former member who died in 1973. They provide three
Paul Harris memberships annually, and we then present them to the
Police, Fire, and Volunteer of the Year. The money collected for the
Rotary Foundation funds our Ambassadorial Scholarship Program. When
WVRC started to support the Polio eradication campaign, we had an
original goal of $73,000. Under HOWIE’S leadership, our actual amount
collected was $120K! Rotary and the World Health Organization are on
target to do away with Polio by the end of 2005 – this program is so
well accepted that various countries where fighting is actually going on
have suspended combat for the three days needed to administer the
vaccine to the children.
But back to Officer Frank
Pettinato. He is a thirty-seven year veteran of LAPD, having joined
right after two years in the Army – including service in Vietnam. Frank
worked in several other divisions, and since 1982 has been attached to
the WLA station. He has received over seventy commendations, and was
wounded in the line of duty during his first year on the force. His
service in WLA has been varied, but he truly is a jack of all trades,
filling in wherever needed. Frank’s official title is Timekeeper, but
his computer skills are legendary – as HOWIE knows by direct
experience. His son is also a police officer. All of the above earned
Frank a Paul Harris Fellow membership, plus being named the Westwood
Village Police Officer of the Year for 2003. Officer Pettinato received
a standing ovation, and was visibly touched by this honor. He warmed
thanked us all for being selected.
SALLY BRANT introduced our
Speaker, Paula M. Cannon. Dr. Cannon received her degree in
microbiology from the University of Liverpool – and then got into the
music industry as an artist manager. But her true love was scientific
research, so she returned to Liverpool to pursue a PhD, receiving two
scholarships along the way. She then worked at Harvard Medical School,
and the University of Oxford, doing research on retroviruses.
In 1996 she accepted the position
of Director of Research of the Gene Therapy Laboratories at USC. She
briefly moved to the Uniformed Services University in Bethesda, but
returned to USC in December of 2002 to join the Division of Research
Immunology and Bone Marrow Transplantation, where she is an Assistant
Professor.
Dr. Cannon’s presentation was
supplemented by some excellent slides. Bone Marrow transplants began in
1983, and today USC provides about fifty per year. There are ten
faculty members involved in this overall program. There are some thirty
THOUSAND genes in each cell (and we have a whole bunch of cells).
Diseases that can possibly be treated include hemophilia, muscular
dystrophy, and cystic fibrosis. The problem is how to get the needed
genes into cells, and viruses provide the carrier. In other words, the
therapeutic genes replace the malfunctioning genes already there.
You need an almost perfect match
to tolerate a bone marrow transplant. A blood relative can provide this
match, and in that case the cure rate is almost 100%. However, if a
relative is not available, the success rate drops to 50%. The procedure
with a baby, for instance, is to remove their bone marrow, isolate the
cells, and then reintroduce them back into the baby. This is one of the
ways that stem cells can be used – they provide almost the same success
rate as true relatives. In the 14 cases covered in her study, 13 were
first successful, and then 2 of them came up with cancer. That means
that 11 of the 14 did work – and that’s a pretty good average if your
life is on the line. These studies are currently being carried out in
Milan, Paris, London, and in the U.S. at St. Judas and Duke University.
Gene Therapy Trials were suspended in 2002, and are now again
permitted.
They treat cancer by blocking the
blood supply to the cancer – this is called Angiogenesis. Some slides
of laboratory mice were shown. Viral vectors were introduced into one
side of the planted cancer, and it turned out that both sides of the
cancer were reduced. I asked when Stem Cell Research was ruled out.
There are 8 cells in an embryo, and the treatment is potentially very
powerful – but embryos are human, and thus only those now in the
laboratory can be used. This total is about 30, which allows some
experimentation. PP MIKE NEWMAN asked what was the most likely disease
that could be eliminated by these treatments, and the answer was
Parkinson’s, in perhaps five years – but a decision to move ahead is
first needed. ELLIOTT TURNER asked if stem cells are studied in a dish
in the lab, and the answer was yes. WOW, this is high tech stuff – and
we thank Dr. Cannon for sharing her research with us.
YOE, Ernie Wolfe |