The modern dam engineer

The 12th Geoffrey Binnie Memorial Lecture was given by Jonathan Hinks, at the British Dam Society’s 2012 Conference held in Leeds, UK on 13 September 2012. The lecture reflected on the role and benefits of dams, some of the world’s outstanding structures, and challenges for today’s dam engineers. Mr Hinks draws examples from his personal experience, during his long and distinguished career working as a consulting engineer worldwide

Combining a targeted radiotherapy and gene therapy approach for adenocarcinoma of prostate

A targeted radiotherapy/gene therapy approach for prostate cancer, using the radiopharmaceutical [<sup>131</sup>1]meta- iodobenzylguanidine ([<sup>131</sup>1]MIBG), would restrict the effects of radiotherapy to malignant cells, thereby increasing efficacy and decreasing morbidity of radiotherapy. Prostate cancer cells were transfected with a transgene encoding the noradrenaline transporter (NAT) under the control of tumour-specific telomerase promoters, enabling them to actively take up [<sup>131</sup>1]MIBG. This led to tumour-specific cell kill. This strategy has the advantage of generating a radiological bystander effect, leading to the destruction of neighbouring tumour cells that have escaped transfection. This targeted approach could be a promising tumour-specific treatment option for prostate cancer