NEW YORK, N.Y. – Ronald G. Crystal, M.D., professor of genetic medicine and director of the Institute for Genetic Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College, will be the opening speaker at a day-long media workshop, "Cancer Biology: From Research to Recovery," in New York City, June 21. Crystal is one of the world's leading authorities on what he describes as "using genes as drugs."

Crystal's major research interests concern a new technique for transferring genes to specific organs in the body. The technology has opened a broad range of therapeutic possibilities for the treatment of hereditary and acquired diseases, including cancers, pulmonary disease, and cardiovascular disease. Crystal's laboratory at New York Weill Cornell Medical Center has collaborated in the use of the first gene-based therapeutic angiogenic agent to treat cardiac ischemia, in effect, employing the first "drug" to produce blood vessels on demand. Crystal was the first to employ the common cold virus - the adenovirus - as the delivery system in gene therapy and the first to use such in vivo gene therapy to treat cystic fibrosis and other diseases.

Crystal will describe his work and discuss his latest research results at the seventh annual Josephine L. Hopkins Foundation science workshop for journalists at the Weill Education Center, Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City.

There is no charge to attend the workshop, but applications must be received by Thursday, June 14. To see the full program or to register online, go to: www.nysep.cornell.edu/hopkins.

Following Crystal's presentation, there will be short lectures in cancer biology, medicine, pharmacology, and computational genomics. In the afternoon, journalists will get hands-on experience in the wet laboratories and the computer laboratories of the medical school. For example, journalists will be able to detect inhibitors to the COX-2 gene, which is an early-response gene induced by growth factors, cytokines, carcinogens, oncogenes, and tumor promoters. Scientists suggest that COX-2 is a novel target for preventing and possibly treating colorectal and other cancers, since it is overexpressed in approximately 85 percent of colorectal cancers and in 50 percent of premalignant cysts.