In 1989, Rosenberg et al. performed the first human gene therapy trial when they used a retrovirus to introduce the gene coding for resistance to neomycin into human tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes before infusing them into five patients with advanced melanoma. This study demonstrated the feasibility of using retroviral gene transduction in humans and set the stage for further studies. Since then, over 900 clinical trials have been completed, are ongoing or have been approved worldwide. These trials have been designed to establish feasibility and safety, to demonstrate the reality of expression of therapeutic protein(s) in vivo by the genes transferred and, in some cases, to show therapeutic benefit. There is no single source of information that presents an overview of all the clinical trials undertaken worldwide. In 1997 we set up a database to bring all the information on clinical trials together as comprehensively and as globally as possible. The data were compiled and are regularly updated from official agency sources, the published literature, presentations at conferences and from information kindly provided by investigators or trial sponsors themselves. As of January 31, 2004, we have identified 918 trials in 24 countries. The USA accounts for two-thirds of these trials. Cancer is by far the most common disease indication, followed by inherited monogenic diseases, and cardiovascular diseases. Viral vectors have been the most frequently used vehicles for transferring genes into human cells, with retroviruses and adenoviruses representing the vast majority. Plasmid (naked) DNA and other non-viral vectors have been used in one-quarter of the trials. Over 100 distinct genes have been transferred. This article aims to provide a descriptive overview of the clinical trials that, to the best of our knowledge, have been or are being performed worldwide. Details of the data presented, including an interactive, searchable database that currently holds information on 918 trials, can be found on The Journal of Gene Medicine clinical trials website 1.

We observe a signal for the doubly charmed baryon Ξ + cc in the decay mode Ξ + cc → pD + K − to complement the previous reported decay Ξ + cc → Λ + c K − π + in data from SELEX, the charm hadroproduction experiment at Fermilab. In this new decay mode we observe an excess of 5.62 events over a combinatoric background estimated by event mixing to be 1.38 ± 0.13 events. The mixed background has Gaussian statistics, giving a signal significance of 4.8σ. The Poisson probability that a background fluctuation can produce the apparent signal is less than 6.4 × 10 −4. The observed mass of this state is 3518 ± 3 MeV/c 2 , consistent with the published result. Averaging the two results gives a mass of 3518.7 ± 1.7 MeV/c 2. The observation of this new weak decay mode confirms the previous SELEX suggestion that this state is a double charm baryon. The relative branching ratio for these two modes is 0.36 ± 0.21.

The Σ − mean squared charge radius has been measured in the space-like Q 2 range 0.035-0.105 GeV 2 /c 2 by elastic scattering of a Σ − beam off atomic electrons. The measurement was performed with the SELEX (E781) spectrometer using the Fermilab hyperon beam at a mean energy of 610 GeV/c. We obtain r 2 ch Σ − = (0.61 ± 0.12 (stat.) ± 0.09 (syst.)) fm 2 . The proton and π − charge radii were measured as well and are consistent with results of other experiments. Our result agrees with the recently measured strong interaction radius of the Σ − .

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Differential cross sections have been measured for nucleon-isobar production and elastic scattering in p -p interactions from 6.2 to 29.7 GeV/c in the laboratory angle range 8 < O , ,

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associated with phase diffusion brought about by a random noise perturbation due to thermal fluctuations. In the quantum theory, the process of contraction of the density matrix after the decay of each injected atom would convert even a pure case into a mixture, so that Eqs. (2) really describe an ensemble of lasers for which phase information is gradually lost. The density matrix does not describe the laser but rather our state of knowledge of the ensemble of lasers under consideration. If we knew initially that a single laser had a nonvanishing electric field, a density matrix with nonzero off-diagonal elements would be required for the initial description, and the average electric field would only decay with the very long mean life of 1/D.