Professor Amit Nathwani will present the Ham-Wasserman Lecture at the 61st ASH Annual Meeting
Freeline, a biotechnology company focused on developing curative gene therapies for chronic systemic diseases, announced today that Professor Amit Nathwani, Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Freeline and Professor of Haemophilia at UCL Cancer Institute, will present the Ham-Wasserman Lecturer at the 61st American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting and Exposition in Orlando, FL.
The Ham-Wasserman Lecture was named in honour of two past ASH presidents, the late Dr Thomas Hale Ham and the late Dr Louis R. Wasserman, distinguished American Haematologists who contributed extensively to the Society. The lectureship is offered to an individual from outside the United States who has made a major contribution to the understanding of an area that relates to haematology.
Professor Nathwani will present on the potential of gene therapy as a functional cure for haemophilia to liberate patients from the burden of disease by driving continuous, endogenous expression of factor VIII or factor IX proteins. He will review the recent advances in this therapy and discuss the obstacles that will need to be overcome for wider availability of this novel treatment for inherited bleeding disorders and other monogenetic disorders.
Professor Nathwani said: “I am honoured to be invited to speak as the 2019 Ham-Wasserman Lecturer for the American Society of Haematology. I believe there is a significant opportunity to offer gene therapies for Haemophilia A and B, which ultimately can be applied to other monogenic disorders.”